


Of Blood and Choice

by Paradoxalpoised



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, Dark Emma, Dark One Emma Swan, DragonQueen, F/F, Femslash, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, swanqueen - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-22
Updated: 2018-09-20
Packaged: 2019-01-21 09:25:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 30,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12454395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paradoxalpoised/pseuds/Paradoxalpoised
Summary: Emma has sacrificed herself for Regina and has become the Dark One. Desperate to save her, Regina has allied herself with the controversial women in her life and with Henry to destroy the Darkness and free Emma from its influence. As the Darkness lurks and possesses Emma entirely, Regina embraces her conflicting emotions, her feelings and the change they bring.





	1. Safe

**Author's Note:**

> Editors | @giors1 and @Devje
> 
> You can find me on Twitter and Tumblr. @Paradoxalpoised
> 
>  
> 
> [Setting | Events in this story take place several months after Emma has become the Dark One at the end of S05. The story is told in scenes during the months that follow in Regina’s life.]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After months of disappearance, Regina finds Emma in her backyard. She’s in bad shape and her return changes everything in the Mills’ home.

* * *

####    
Scene 1

She doesn’t need anything but the moonlight shining throughout the house to direct her to her back porch. Henry is asleep in his bed. Not peaceful, no, but asleep. Roland is sleeping in the former guest room directly next to Henry’s room. Carefree.

Emma is outside.

Robin will have to be comfortable, left in her bed. Abandoned.

Emma is outside.

She rushes barefoot in her silk pajamas. Emma is hunched in on herself, on the muddy grass that is already insinuating itself between Regina’s toes. It’s freezing cold, Emma is shivering violently.

“I tried,” she stutters. “I keep trying to stay away.” She doesn’t look up, just hugs herself on the ground. “Send me away.”

“Emma.” Regina kneels by her side, prying her arms apart, pulling her into her lap and her chest. “Emma.” She rocks them. She touches Emma everywhere she can. Her hair is damp and dirty, her face is covered in scrapes and grime.

“I can’t stay,” Emma says, clinging to Regina so much it hurts. “Send me away.”

“You’re not going anywhere,” Regina says.

Six months.

The rain falls, slow drops picking up a pace, forming trails of clearer skin on Emma’s tortured face.

She’s filthy. She’s Emma. She’s home.

“Hen…” Emma seizes with a sob. “I… I …”

Emma grabs onto her, mud, tears, blood. She tastes of rust under Regina’s lips. Emma pushes her down, on her, climbing into her. She feels their bodies slide on the cold ground.

“You can,” Regina tells her firmly. “You are not going to hurt Henry, Emma.”

Promise.

“You don’t know.” Emma’s teeth are chattering and they’re both shaking. Emma looks at her. “I don’t know.”

Regina wraps her arms around her as tightly as she can. She knows. “You are still you, you are here, we will end this curse once and for all.”

She will stop at nothing.

Emma nuzzles at her neck, her jaw, her cheek. “I want to die, Regina.” She rests her face into hers, softly. “I want to die and hurt and destroy.” Regina feels Emma’s hands on the skin of her sides. “I need you.” Emma kisses the corner of her mouth. “You’re the only one who understands.”

Regina knows this particular brand of hatred. The one that comes with a power which lashes in before it can ever lash out. Red rimmed eyes on pale, pale skin. Eyeliner, crimson lips, and cleavage.

“I will keep you safe,” Regina tells her, chants to her, presses to her with her lips, “I will keep you safe.”

Because she knows what comes next. She won’t allow it.

“I want to shatter the earth and ravage them all until I bathe in their blood.”

She won’t allow it.

 

* * *

#### Scene 2

Regina transports them to the basement. It’s a part of the house Emma knows well. They’ve trained there, they’ve eaten, lounged, with and without Henry, they’ve drunk and they’ve talked late at night. They’ve even fought.

She sets them directly in the large Italian shower, and turns the hot water on everywhere around them. She could magic their clothes away, but Emma needs this.

Emma needs this, and maybe she does, too.

Regina pulls that awful white Irish sweater Emma was wearing that fatidic night up and above her head. She drops it heavy with water further out of the shower. She pulls Emma’s shirt and tank-top in the same fashion. She unfastens her bra, pausing to look at Emma observing her. Her upper body is covered in bruises, all at different stages of healing, leaving Emma a crass rainbow of ugly colors. They’re shaped of fists and other inflicted blows. Beat up.

Emma is beautiful. Even unhealthily skinny, even hunched with exhaustion, even marked with her own disgust.

Regina kneels to unfasten Emma’s boots, earth blending with the stream all around them, soaking its scent into the steam of hot water. Once Emma steps out of them, she throws them with the rest. She undoes Emma’s jeans button and zipper, pulling hard to manage to get them off the long legs covered in a thin fuzz of blonde hair. Underwear follows suit.

Emma is looking down. Bare. Embarrassed.

Regina sheds her pajamas, feeding the pile once more, and without pause presses their bodies together. It doesn’t matter that Robin lies upstairs in her bed. It doesn’t matter that she’s never allowed herself much of any physical contact with Emma Swan.

This is survival. This is primal. Emma sacrificed herself for her. Emma belongs with her. To her.

Emma desperately needs to feel human. To feel loved. To feel wanted, and claimed and owned. Branded.

Emma shivers into Regina’s arms. Then, as if her body has finally registered where she is, she gives a long sigh of relief. Regina feels the tips of Emma’s fingers find the dimples of her lower back, tracing them back and forth, her head resting gently on her shoulder, lips to the skin of her throat.

There are soft tremors to Emma’s chest. She’s crying.

“Mi cielo,” Regina whispers on Emma’s cheek, using her hands to help dirt and blood from Emma’s hair. “Compartiremos el dolor. Encontraremos una solución juntas. No llores, mi cielo.”

She shushes her, gently, over and over, lavishing her in soap and shampoo, gently massaging scalp and sore shoulders. She’s careful of Emma’s bruises and marks, scabs and cuts. They will heal them. Together. Later. She lets her hands trail up and down Emma’s body, shedding her of the hairs on her legs, under her armpits, on her sex. She trims the blonde hair, using her magic. She never thought of teaching her that.

She wants Emma to be comfortable, so she doesn’t linger. She washes her own hair and body, rinsing both of them under the shower heads. When she realizes Emma’s eyes are still closed and she’s leaning into her body for contact, she decides to let the water run awhile longer.

Emma’s fingers find purchase on her lower back. Their bodies together. She could deny the arousal. Regina has never been one to lie to herself, only to feign it. The pain is more glorious that way. She lets the water wash those thoughts away. She places her open mouth to the skin of Emma’s shoulder. She sips the clear water, applying her tongue to the taut skin covering muscle. She allows herself to suckle gently, just a little. Just enough for Emma to give in, but not be marked by another bruise Regina refuses to inflict on her. Then she wraps her arms around Emma’s neck and head, and brings her in closer so she can speak directly in her ear.

“I need you to stay and trust me.”

“You have the dagger,” Emma says, dejected. “I will do anything you ask of me.”

Regina swallows the fierce bite of her own anger. She kisses Emma’s lips. “I’d prefer not to, I’d prefer you to do what I ask of you anyway.”

“‘kay,” Emma says. Compliant.

Would Emma give herself over to the pirate this way? Anything for relief?

Trust is not what either of them does best, but Regina knows Emma. This is them. This is of them. The pirate won’t matter. She’s going to have to face Robin as well.

Regina leads them out of the shower once she’s turned the water off. She dries them, then, with another swirl of her hand, dresses them both for sleep.

They’ve done that before, sleep, on the huge and comfortable couch of the basement. She wants to offer Emma food. She looks like she’s going to drop from exhaustion, though.

Regina gets blankets and pillows, arranges them and herself in the depth of leather, then beckons Emma to her. Only when Emma’s body is comfortably wrapped over hers does she speak again, winding her fingers through Emma’s hair.

“You are home now, Emma.” She kisses her forehead. “I will keep you safe.”

 

* * *

#### Scene 3

Dawn is rather dull, reflected on muddy pools of water weaving through the grass of her yard. She’s made coffee, she’s working on making scones and muffins, which she’ll add to bacon and eggs for Emma and the children when they each emerge.

Emma needs to eat. It won’t be a pretty affair. She’s starved, which means she will need to have little amounts of food at a time or she’ll get sick.

When she senses his presence, Regina wishes it would be Henry and his nightmares, quietly shuffling himself to her for love and reassurance, for time and presence, just the two of them. Mother and son. She wishes it would be Roland, small but noisier, climbing a chair to hug her, still so, so warm, yet always confused and broken hearted, missing his momma. Sometimes she pauses and appreciates that, for months on end, he’s been raised and cared for by Zelena, the psychotic sister she won’t be able to deny forever. She’s choked on sobs at his glee, his laughter, his happiness, all coming from her sister. Because Zelena is capable and humane and how terrifying a thought.

When she senses his presence, however, Regina prepares herself to battle Robin Hood.

He doesn’t come behind her to encircle her in his arms, or to touch her in any way, and for that she is grateful.

“Robin,” she greets him. “Would you like some tea?” He struggles with coffee and the taste. The Land doesn’t have it.

“You never came back to bed,” he says instead of an answer. “She’s here, isn’t she?”

She could lie, play coy, stall so it hurts him maybe a little less. Because Robin helped, he supported, he even thought it honorable, generous and kind of himself to assume he understood. But Robin has never wanted Emma to come back. Not that he is incredibly more selfish than any other, simply that he wants something of Regina he can’t quite possess if Emma is here.

If Emma is home. With her family. With their son. With her.

“Yes,” Regina says, her lower back to the counter. “I found her in the yard last night.”

Even if Emma is the Dark One.

He is Robin of Locksley. He’s only himself and not quite the par, is he? All fairy dust, fate’s Damocles’ sword shadow, and good intentions. He’s not Emma Swan. He’s not the mother of her son.

“You’ve kept her here? In the house?” He’s angry. He sounds wounded, like she meant to personally insult him. “She’s dangerous, Regina. She could hurt the children.”

He’s not the one who can send her pulse racing from heights of rage then down to a buried pool of tenderness in two beats of a single moment.

He’s been wanting to. She has entertained him. Something of an old habit to comply with the idea that, one way or another, the Land has a will which will come back to screw her over, always and ever.

“Emma will not hurt Henry,” Regina says. She’s still calm.

This is over.

“You’re right,” Robin says. “She won’t.”

He has the dagger. She can’t see it, but she can feel it. She can even feel the darkening of his anger and his jealousy, fuelled by the artefact. Ugly.

She steps to the other side of the kitchen island. She leans forward on her hands, facing him with deliberate quietude.

“Give me the dagger, Robin,” Regina requests. “It’s not for you to have.”

It’s out of a movie really, the slow motion of Emma, shy and fierce in one body, wearing sleep and vulnerability on a display of disdain and pity. For herself and for him. Her arms encircle Regina’s waist, while Regina keeps her hands flat on the strong, smooth wood of her family table. Emma’s fingers find the skin of her stomach. She feels Emma round her back so she can press her face to the nape of her neck. She hears and senses the labored huffs of Emma’s breathing, how she looks for safety and calm, for the strength not to give in.

“Regina,” Emma says. It’s not loud. Warning.

But Robin does not understand it. He does not feel it in his spine. Regina caresses Emma’s fingers on her stomach, by the tails of her shirt. She wills the touch to infuse calm and fortitude into Emma.

He’s angry and jealous, but he doesn’t deserve to die for it. Or for her.

“Look at you!” He’s not screaming, he’s more pleading already. “She’s the Dark One and you can’t refuse her. You’re—you’re in love with her.”

“Robin. The dagger, please.” Regina will take it by force if she has to, but she doesn’t want to set Emma off.

She does not say please. Not ever. Even in polite, contrite little sentences of mundane banality, she does not say please.

“I thought we had a chance.” He’s forlorn and it seeps into his words. Tired of losing, tired of grieving. “But you love her. I’m only the one you settle for.”

“I wanted to believe it, too.” She tries to convey the sincerity of her words. “I wanted to give you what you desired, and follow the path indicated to me as well. But the truth is, Robin, it hasn’t worked. For all the amiable companionship and the safety of the domesticity we’ve been enjoying, this hasn’t worked.”

Emma’s arms grip her tighter. She is the anchor weathering the raging storm of Emma’s feelings.

She had accounted for the rage and the anger. She hadn’t foreseen such volatility.

“I know that you are hurt,” Regina tells him firmly. “But you need to give me the dagger.”

Emma nuzzles her neck until her chin rests on Regina’s shoulder and she’s looking directly at Robin. Regina can see the fear in his eyes.

“Give it to her,” Emma hisses. “Now!”

Even Regina is startled. Robin throws it down on the kitchen island where it lands with a clunk. With one last look of grief and reproach, he turns on his heels, eyes full of tears. Shaken. They aren’t finished, at least not for him, she can tell. He takes quick long strides to the parlor then up the staircase to where Roland and Henry’s rooms are.

She turns around as well. In Emma’s arms. She takes Emma’s face in her hands, stroking her cheeks with her thumbs. Emma leans into her touch, kisses the palms of her hands.

“Did I scare you?” Emma asks. “He wouldn’t do what you asked. Did I scare you?”

Regina looks at her, weighing her words. Emma is almost childlike now, lost and apologetic, as if ready to flee. She hasn’t even looked at the dagger, but that might not last.

“You’re very strong,” Regina says. “You can be intimidating.”

Emma lowers her forehead to Regina’s jaw, she kisses her throat and sighs. She presses her fingers to her pulse point, her chin, to Regina’s lips.

“I thought he was your happy ending,” she whispers.

“I thought I didn’t have a choice in the matter,” Regina says against the fingertips. “But I was mistaken.”

“Mistaken,” Emma repeats.

Regina maneuvers them so she can face the parlor. Emma doesn’t resist her. Maybe she knows. Henry will be rushing down the stairs soon. For his mother.

“He doesn’t belong here,” Emma squeezes her firmly. “You’re my family.”

“Yes, mi cielo,” Regina reassures.


	2. Steady

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summary | As Robin leaves, Emma and Henry are finally reunited. Regina and Henry try to keep Emma safe and comfortable, together as a family so she can rekindle with her humanity and stay with them as they search for a solution to free her from the Dark One’s Curse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Editors | @giors1 and @Devje
> 
> You can find me on Twitter and Tumblr. @Paradoxalpoised
> 
>  
> 
> [Setting | Events in this story take place several months after Emma has become the Dark One at the end of S05. The story is told in scenes during the months that follow in Regina’s life.]

 

* * *

 

#### Scene 4

When Robin rushes down the stairs, he has a rucksack over one arm, Roland in the other, the little boy holding on to his neck. They are leaving. It’s just as well. Robin is not ready to understand, and Emma is dangerous.

He opens the front door just as Henry jumps down the last five stairs past them and as Roland sees her. She hates that she’s unable to tell the little boy she’s come to care so much about that he must once more lose any sense of home and stability because he lives in a world of hatred, cowardice and magic. Goodbye.

Emma clutches at her. Henry runs. Regina lifts a hand up, flat, in a stopping motion so as to slow Henry down after he’s covered the three steps of the parlor leading up to the kitchen in a single stride.

Roland extends his free arm, calls for her. She can’t comfort him, not now. She loathes the abject certitude that she is breaking his heart, knowing that his innocence is being torn from him piece by piece each time an adult betrays him.

Emma leans heavily into her. Regina is protecting Roland, even if that means letting him down. Robin loves his son. He will do right by him. Or at least he will try his best.

Robin turns around, the door opened, he’s looking at her. Even from the kitchen she can see the hurt on his face. Roland leans and leans, calling her name.

“Go,” she mouths at Robin. She waves at Roland with the hand she wasn’t able to put down. His is grasping the air, pleading. “Go,” she mouths again.

Henry only has eyes for them, he doesn’t stop until she feels his arms around her, around Emma. His face in her chest, with Emma’s. She wraps them both into her. He’s sobbing, his voice a strangled strand of one linear sound of guttural pain. It sounds like “Mom.”

Robin pulls Roland back to his chest. Steps outside. The door closes with the momentum of their departure.

She closes her eyes. She breathes them in. She indulges in a moment of peace in the eye of the storm.

Then she watches how Emma has a hand cradling Henry’s head. How the tears are trailing down Emma’s face through the lashes of her closed eyes. How she kisses the top of Henry’s head and sniffles.

Henry is everything. Emma is everything. They belong to her.

 

* * *

#### Scene 5

They blow their noses and dry their tears, until all three realize they are standing in the kitchen, alone in the house, in their pajamas.

That’s when Henry-niño’s stomach growls and Regina remembers about all the food she’s been preparing. She turns back to the coffee machine and launches an espresso shot as she serves a large cup of coffee to which she adds the shot immediately after. Emma likes her red eye. Literally.

Coffee to start, now to food and a proper welcome.

“Henry, why don’t you go find us some music?”

They haven’t done any of this since Emma left. Since Robin and Roland came.

Henry puts the old records on from the study—Celia Cruz, Tito Puente, Héctor Lavoe, and others like Ray Barretto and even Jorge and Carlos Santana—just like they used to do when he was little, it was Sunday and they baked together. He knows, he just knows. She needs this to be theirs, so does he and, even more so, Emma. Family.

The scones and muffins go into the oven, bacon on the top rack. The eggs are scrambled. There’s even hot chocolate with cinnamon to sweeten the atmosphere of safety and lightness once the first coffee is gone.

The tea calcifies, cold and forgotten.

Emma eats little bites of eggs and bacon, and sips fresh-squeezed orange juice. She lets Regina feed her after she chokes on the first three forkfuls of eggs she gobbles. Regina strokes her cheek with her thumb after each small swallow of success. Henry eats and watches and smiles. There is nothing strange, she thinks, to have your son understand love and care and precious, without question, but only sadness and pride that he can do it and bask in the act itself.

After they eat, they settle in the study, fire crackling, music low and warming as much as the colorful flames. Emma allows herself to rest against Regina, who gently threads her fingers through her hair while Henry only has eyes for his mother, finally returned to him.

Emma is quiet, barely relaxed. Regina feels her ready to bounce and flee at any possible moment, but, for as much as they are mesmerised by her return, she seems permanently conflicted between seeking comfort in them and apparently not being able to help herself. Defenseless.

The Darkness lurks.

The Dagger follows, at Regina’s arm length. Emma cannot have it.

He tells Emma all they have done. Plans, research, ups and downs. How they never lost faith, especially not Regina. He tells Emma how Regina solved the problem of their leaving town as they wished, so they could have road-trips looking for her. He even tells Emma how Red got one of her amulets pierced, and the spell from the scroll tattooed on her skin with Regina’s magic so she would never be lost or stuck outside of Storybrooke—Lily, too. He tells Emma about looking for Merlin, and how bad he feels for having destroyed the Quill, allowing himself to be the Author without his power to write his mothers a different fate and destroy the Dark One’s Curse himself.

Emma listens, nods, even offers the beginning of a smile at times. Neither Henry nor Regina ask about her side of the six months they have spent apart. She’s clearly not ready to talk, barely uttering a sound at all. Henry pauses sometimes, studying Emma, looking at Regina for reassurance when Emma closes her eyes here and there.

Regina is content to let him talk, to let Henry show Emma that she is wanted, that they won’t stop until she is free.

Emma cannot have the Dagger.

Not that Emma couldn’t be dark and angry and acting out, were that what she truly chose to be, but the Darkness possesses her, whether she is self-aware or not. Whether she’s under the illusion that she is able to control it or not.

Regina is content to let him talk, because they both know something Emma won’t know until they have found a way to change the fate of the heart host to the Darkness.

Henry-not-so-niño found Merlin over two months ago. And that was the easy part.

 

* * *

#### Scene 6

It’s only early afternoon when Regina receives a furious series of text messages from Snow demanding to see her daughter. She’s actually surprised it has taken this long, until she gets another from Red in her lovely spelling:

**_‘Standing guard to protect ur fort. Wont last long tho. Snow going cray.’_ **

She swipes at her new iPhone to answer—Henry insisted she had to replace her ancient BlackBerry when they started ‘Operation Dark Swan’—careful not to wake Emma from her arms as she does.

**_‘She’s asleep, in bad shape and very much not ready for Snow’s smothering. Can you reason with her to at least give us until morning? I’ll try to broach it with Emma so she and Charming can visit.’_ **

Losing Emma for such a long time has taken its toll on Snow White and her Prince Charming. David has been much more reasonable and helpful than his wife. Snow has stubbornly been hanging onto her delusion that Emma’s being the fruit of True Love and the Savior can beat the Darkness of the Dark One’s Curse by only the sheer force of good and love surrounding her. Denial.

In other words, as long as Snow can hold her baby, everything will be all right.

David has picked up as the town’s Sheriff, but his approach seems a lot less biased than it had once been. He’s also been supportive of Regina’s being the keeper of the Dagger from the beginning, no matter how many times the pirate has claimed it should be entrusted to him. But what has earned him Regina’s respect is his acceptance of Lily, Maleficent, and even Zelena helping in the search for any means to free Emma from the Curse.

And then there’s Red. Who came at her, big bad wolf, demanding to be part of the operation’s effort. She actually turned up all furs then stark naked on Regina’s back porch, arms crossed on her chest, growling that she was part of this family and they’d better not leave her out of it.

That night, Regina laughed for the first time in the week since Emma’s disappearance. The pest found a way to stick around, fleas and snark, being the energy Regina didn’t have, especially with Henry, when it first hit her that Emma had truthfully sacrificed herself to give her what she thought was her happy ending.

The phone lights up again.

**_‘Done. You guys safe?’_ **

Regina answers, warmed at Red’s worry. **_‘For now. I’ll let you know if we need anything.’_**

She locks the phone again, but not before turning all her alerts off. She doesn’t want inadvertent eyes to see that she may love Emma and rejoice at her return, but that she isn’t fooled by the Darkness.

As much as she would love to, as much as she is dying to, she can’t abandon herself to be in Emma’s presence anew. This Emma is a balancing act of trust and betrayal, of desperation and gratuitous violence.

She is Emma, but not at all times, and in perpetual suffering—if the state of her body is anything to go by for how much she is fighting this invasion of her psyche.

Yet Regina watches her, asleep, snuggled into her, chest rising up and down at the same rhythm as Henry’s, as they both nap away the afternoon. Emotions will do that. Henry-niño is holding Emma’s hand. His mother’s hand.

She ponders when she actually started to refer to Emma as his mother without feeling that ping of petrified jealousy, but it doesn’t hold long against her observation of how, even in his frightened sleep, he’s being delicate and gentle.

Not holding on too tight, not letting go too far. Everything about him says ‘I love you’ in such a respectful, caring way, it’s a mystery to her how beautiful he is with how ugly she has been, how ugly this, these worlds have been. It’s a mystery she cherishes.

Emma is home, yes, but now comes the real challenge of keeping her here. Keeping her steady. Keeping herself in check.

While lying to her.


	3. Need

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Night has come and as Regina focuses on healing Emma’s injuries, they abandon themselves to their feelings and desires.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Editors | @giors1 and @Devje
> 
> You can find me on Twitter and Tumblr. @Paradoxalpoised
> 
>  
> 
> [Setting | Events in this story take place several months after Emma has become the Dark One at the end of S05. The story is told in scenes during the months that follow in Regina’s life.]

* * *

 

#### Scene 7

“Turn around,” Regina orders gently. “Let me see.”

They’re in the basement for the night, having put Henry-niño to bed, fifteen or not, and waited for him to fall asleep. He wasn’t ready to let either of them go.

Emma hasn’t spoken much, but her demeanor is still relatively neutral. For now it seems that, as long as she isn’t provoked, she won’t lose control. At least not with them.

When they left his room, Emma walked right past Regina’s room, not even looking at the door. Regina followed. The basement is their safe place. Where she taught Emma to control her magic. Where she taught her how to appreciate wine. Where she discovered Emma Swan for who she really is.

Maybe it’s where they allowed their feelings to grow without admitting any of them.

Emma turns her back to her. Regina gently, oh-so-carefully runs her fingers on the exposed skin at the hem of the tank top she’s given Emma.

“May I pull it up?” she asks. “You have bruises everywhere.”

“Hmm,” is Emma’s acquiescence, although she shivers a single noticeable tremor when Regina lifts the fabric over her head.

The marks are everywhere. On her sides, on her hips and shoulder blades. She has a particularly nasty one in the middle of her spine as if—as if someone has taken a knee to her back or thrown her into a pole. There are scratches, small cuts. Furious red half-sewn, half visibly stapled, badly healed, fiery red scars.

“Mi cielo, what have you done to yourself?” Regina has an inkling.

“Underground street fighting,” Emma mumbles.

So Emma tried to beat the Darkness out of herself? Tried to punish herself for being the Dark One?

Was it to break the monster into submission?

Regina starts her work in silence. She caresses Emma’s skin with her hands, infusing a spell against the pain before she brushes each hideous line with her fingertips, erasing all visible traces of Emma’s fight against herself.

“It’s still here,” Emma’s voice cracks as she speaks. “Even spending all this time out of Storybrooke, it’s always with me.” She whispers, “I thought I could control it better if it couldn’t use my magic, I thought I could preserve myself.”

Regina changes position to sit in front of Emma’s naked chest.

“That’s not how the Darkness works, Emma.” She traces a line from Emma’s forehead to her temple, her thumb resting at the end of Emma’s eyebrow line where she must have been wearing a band-aid for weeks.

She kisses Emma’s right cheekbone, feeling the hairline crack in the bone heal under her lips.

“Help me.” Tears spill from Emma’s bloodshot eyes. Regina can taste them on the tip of her tongue and their meaning weighs heavily on her chest.

“I will,” she promises. “I will help you.”

She starts by helping Emma to lie down, softly pressing both hands to her clavicles. Leaning forth, she continues her healing. Gentle hands. Humming low. Emma hisses when she gets to her abdomen and hips.

“You’re a lot sorer in these areas.” Regina is less than calm about Emma’s condition but breathes in deeply to keep her anger at bay. “I don’t suppose you’ve seen a doctor or had any follow-up after whichever injuries you got?”

“Got dropped off at the ER a couple of times,” Emma answers, sniffling and wiping at her eyes. “Dislocated my right hip once.” She grimaces as Regina focuses on the barely and badly mended tendons and muscles around the hip joint. “I couldn’t stay for follow-up, couldn’t risk you finding me.”

In any other circumstances, Regina would insist on taking Emma to the hospital after she’d done her work and have Emma x-rayed from head to toe.

Emma, not the Dark One.

She removes the yoga pants, and continues inexorably with each bruise, bump, scratch, cut, scar and everything else invisible to the eye. Then she contemplates her body, feeling the weight of all the magic spent to mend Emma’s tortured flesh, hoping that maybe she has managed to soothe her soul as well, even if only for the lap of a short recess.

Her right hand rests on Emma’s solar plexus.

“There, all done,” Regina says, not as poised as she would prefer.

Emma’s hands cover hers.

“I’ve missed you and the kid so much.”

Regina uses her other hand to thread her fingers through Emma’s hair, petting it reassuringly.

“We’ve missed you, too, incredibly so, but you are here now. You don’t have to miss us anymore.”

Emma’s smile is so sad, Regina doesn’t notice when her hand cups her cheek in such tenderness, it takes her breath away.

“I already do,” she whispers. “It’s growing stronger by the second. Since I’ve been here. Since you’ve fed me, healed me.”

“Emma— ” Regina tries.

“Since you’ve touched me.” Emma’s thumb brushes Regina’s lips. “It won’t be long now, before I’m lost to it.” Emma is so sullen, Regina knows what she will say next. “If I don’t leave, promise me you won’t hesitate to use the dagger. Don’t let me be like that, ‘kay?”

“I—okay.”

Despair. Tears. Forbidden love.

How did they fall so low? The Savior and her nemesis. There’s nothing to hide behind. No fate, no fairy dust. No more excuses, not even that they have a son together. No way out.

Not that she would want one anyway.

Regina stops thinking, letting her senses take over once Emma’s lips brush against hers. Their brands of magic immediately mingle as they always have. Emma’s is familiar, warm, transcendent, as if Regina can do anything as long as they’re together. It’s that, but it’s also tainted.

This is not what she had thought their recognition of each other could ever feel like. Not that she had planned for this. To be fair.

As their kiss deepens, Emma’s tongue in her mouth, her own casual clothes disappear in coils of a dark midnight blue.

They grind against each other, Regina straddling Emma’s hips. Emma’s hands on her back, pulling her in. Grabbing. Scratching.

“Fuck, I need you,” Emma pants. She kisses her neck and throat, biting hard enough to make Regina gasp aloud in the surprise of sharp pain.

Pulling herself up on her arms, Regina gazes in Emma’s eyes, dark with the fever of desire, of fear, and maybe a brazen madness she might have seen lurking there before. Maybe not just tainted by the Darkness.

No, darkness. Like hers.

Regina sits up. She watches Emma devour her with those eyes. Desperation.

She feels the hesitation in Emma’s trembling hand splayed flat on the sensitive skin of her stomach. She guides Emma’s hand lower. Lower to where she’s sitting on Emma’s pubic bone, wetness spreading. She lifts herself high enough for Emma’s hand to fit in between them.

“I need you, too.”

She doesn’t stop staring into Emma’s eyes as she feels herself parted, caressed, spread. She can’t tear her eyes away as she freezes, aware that she’s never done something like this. That she’s never allowed herself to be touched this way. Surrender.

Of her men, she’s always facilitated what she wanted. Refused what she didn’t. She’s taken and pushed into submission. It was never about them, and never to her contentment. As of late, it’s only been few and far between, and barely with the intent to keep up the pretence. Not that she intended to fool Robin or rob him of an intimacy he felt entitled to, simply that she could never give herself this way. Never with men. Certainly not him. Means to an end.

Of her women, she remembers vividly the desire, the want, the need. The tenderness. She remembers Marika, teaching her the sweet caresses and gentle love. She remembers Maleficent, the playfulness, the deep connection, their love making. Rough at times, passionate always. The fascination. Being in love. The dragon, her own demons.

Touching Emma. Feeling her inside. Regina’s body welcomes her, clenches around her fingers. To keep her.

“Stay,” Regina whispers in Emma’s ear as she finds her clitoris with her fingertips, riding Emma’s fingers in a deep, slow movement. “I want you to stay. I can’t be without you.”

She’s not sure how to express what she feels. Vulnerable.

All Regina knows is that she can’t stand the idea of Emma leaving again.

“Emma,” Regina moans, raised on her knees, sitting on Emma’s fingers. She reaches behind herself to Emma’s entrance, arching her back as much as she can and pushing on Emma’s fingers as deep as she can.

She closes her eyes when she feels Emma’s burning folds, boiling with pleasure.

They move together. Same rhythm. Same need. Same battle.

Regina takes Emma’s free hand in hers. They both squeeze.

“Regina.” It sounds like a warning. “Regina—” Emma is scared. She’s about to come.

“Come for me,” Regina encourages her. “Come for me,” Regina whispers, about to come herself. “I’ve got you, I will keep you safe.”

The moment she feels Emma’s convulsion around her fingers, she lets go herself. The explosion of their orgasms resonate strongly into the flow of their magic together. In her mind, Regina wards off the Darkness to hold onto Emma’s essence. A beacon of light.

“I love you,” Emma blurts, choking on tears in her breaking voice as Regina falls into her chest and wraps an arm around her neck. She threads her fingers through Emma’s hair.

“And I’ve loved you for a long time, Emma Swan,” Regina tells her, kissing her cheek and her jaw. “You belong with me. With us.” She presses Emma’s hand in hers on her heart. “Here.”

She’s afraid when she feels Emma’s finger wrap around her heart and hold it in her chest. She exhales, abandoning herself to Emma’s claim and letting the fear run off of her skin.

“Mine?” Emma asks.

“Yours,” Regina gives.

The beast is free.


	4. Rejection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emma is confronted to Snow, David and Hook. Despite Regina and Henry’s best efforts, things do not go well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Editors | @giors1 and @Devje
> 
> You can find me on Twitter and Tumblr. @Paradoxalpoised
> 
>  
> 
> [Setting | Events in this story take place several months after Emma has become the Dark One at the end of S05. The story is told in scenes during the months that follow in Regina’s life.]

* * *

 

#### Scene 8

“I don’t want to go.” Henry-niño is not only pouting, he’s frustrated.

“High School is not optional. You have to go.” There will always be this part of her which wants to shield him from the ugly and the harmful.

“She just got back, Mamá. Come on?” He gets up from his kitchen stool. “I’m part of this, I’ve got a responsibility, too, and until now you understood that. You know I can make up for school any time.”

The dagger is sitting idly by the coffee machine on the counter. Emma has yet to wake up and join them in the kitchen, but Regina can feel it. The Darkness is awake.

“I know, mijo, but you also have a life to live. A life with people your age and matters your age. We are not alone in our quest to help Emma, and you can take a break.”

“I don’t need a break. I just need Ma and you for a little while. I just need to be home with my family.” He sighs so deeply, she feels old for him. He shouldn’t have to feel that way. He walks around the kitchen island and rests his back against the counter, right next to her. “What are you so afraid of, Mom?”

Regina looks afar, through the window to the bare and muddy ground of her yard. “Red texted.” The fact that he can read her so well both annoys and pleases her. They have a team, but they are an even tighter team of two. “Snow, and I’m guessing the pirate with her, is ready to burst in here any moment now.”

“You think Ma can handle it?” His beautiful face marred by a deep frown when he comes into her line of sight.

“Handle what?” Emma surprises them both, bare feet, hoodie and yoga pants, her hands in her pockets. Quiet.

“Let me get you some coffee,” Regina stalls but knows it can only buy her seconds.

“Gran,” Henry-not-so-ninõ answers for her, while she pours the fresh espresso in Emma’s mug. “She wants to visit.”

“Yeah,” Emma nods, wrapping both hands around the mug Regina gives her, leaning into Regina’s body next to her like she’s the only source of heat in the house. “Figures.”

Regina kisses her forehead and wraps an arm around Emma’s shoulder. “I don’t think we can put it off much longer.”

If she could, she’d put it off forever.

Emma breathes in her coffee, sips from it a couple of times. She stays there, glued to Regina. Brute force wrapped in weakness.

“We’ll be with you, Ma.” Henry’s voice inspires confidence.

Not enough for Emma. “Thanks, Kid.”

The doorbell rings. It’s too early.

“Just follow my lead,” she tells Emma.

Emma puts her coffee down on the kitchen island and falls into step with Regina. Fingers find hers in a grip.

Henry gets the door. Regina stands in the center of the parlor, Emma slightly behind her.

“Regina,” Charming nods to her.

“Oh, Emma.” Snow walks toward both of them, aiming for Regina’s side where Emma is.

There’s a tug on her fingers and Emma’s other hand is between her shoulder blades. It stops Snow in her tracks.

“Let’s take it slow,” Regina says for all of them.

David is not far behind Snow. As she suspected, Hook is also standing in front of her. Red is by the door, resting against the wall.

“Emma?” Snow’s voice cracks and fills with tears. Her eyes dart between Emma and Regina. “It’s okay, sweetheart, everything is going to be okay now.”

Not a thing is okay at all. Snow is as pushy as ever and Regina can feel Emma on the brink of a breakdown.

Or a disappearing act.

Magic is swirling inside them. Silent panic attack.

“Give her a moment,” David says to Snow as he wraps an arm around his wife’s shoulders stopping her careful progression.

Henry is next to Red, observing the scene and sending Regina worried looks. The tension is quite high in the room entrance to her home.

But nothing compares to the spike of complete rejection taking over her entire being when Hook addresses Emma. “Swan, it’s me, it’s Killian.”

“I don’t think Emma is quite ready for all this.” Regina attempts to calm the room. “Let’s not crowd her all at once.”

“Right,” David says, “maybe we could sit down together.”

“There’s a fire in the study.” Henry walks toward Regina and Emma. Regina can’t see what’s happening between them but she can see Henry’s smile and how he’s holding his mother’s hand, trying to be reassuring.

She takes a deep breath when she feels Emma take a step back from her toward the study.

“What is this?” Hook hisses to Regina. “What have you done to her? She’s as pale as the dead, hanging on to you for dear life.”

“She’s been through a lot,” Regina answers simply. Whether he understands that he’s not needed isn’t much of a concern, as long as he doesn’t make a scene in the middle of Emma’s reunion with her family. The whole situation is volatile enough as it is. “You should stay here with Red.”

“Like hell I’m staying behind.”

Regina doesn’t have to turn back to know that Emma and Henry haven’t made it to the study. Emma’s uneasiness at the rise of her own violence is palpable.

Regina turns to David, with the hope that he will understand her silent plea. Red is already breathing harder at the electricity in the air.

“No matter.” Snow silences Hook with a look. “We’re taking Emma home with us. She needs her family and we’ll help her be herself again.”

Idiots. Entitled, self righteous, selfish idiots.

“Emma is home here with mom and me.” Henry’s anger reverberates around the parlor.

Regina turns around to look at him and Emma still holding hands. She catches Emma’s pleading eyes. She’s losing her most recent battle with the Darkness.

“Emma,” Regina mouths.

Emma closes her eyes.

Regina tries again. “Snow, please come and sit. We need to give Emma space to breathe.”

It feels oddly like her conversation with Robin the previous morning. It’s lost on Snow as it was lost on Robin that she’s trying to protect them, to give everyone a chance. Emma first.

But when has Snow White ever been reasonable.

“No,” Snow snarls, shaking her head. “I’ve waited long enough for you to let me see my daughter.” She takes a couple of steps toward Regina, a fist raised. Accusing. “I am her mother. I know what is best for my own child.”

“Snow,” David warns and begs in the same tone. “You know Regina only wants to help. Fighting won’t do any good for Emma.”

The bond between Emma and Regina is heavy with guilt and rage.

“You’re the one who insisted the Queen should keep the dagger with her,” Hook retorts. “What proof do we have it hasn’t gone to her head?”

It happens before Regina can interfere. Hook flies into the heavy entrance door and is pinned against it in mid-air.

“Emma, no!” Regina snaps. “Let him down.”

Hook lands on the floor with a dull thud, loud in the shocked silence which has fallen over those present.

Emma seems as frozen as everyone else. Her eyes are full of tears, her shaky hand extended in front of her.

Regina takes two strides to join her. She cups Emma’s face in her hands and strokes her skin with her thumbs. “Breathe. I’ve got you.”

“I’m sorry,” Emma whispers, leaning into Regina’s left hand.

“It’s nothing.” Emma needs reassurance.

“This is too much.” Emma’s tears fall heavy on Regina’s skin. “I can’t control myself.”

“I’ll keep you safe.” Regina’s voice cracks. She knows what comes next.

Emma’s kiss is so soft. Goodbye.

The thick midnight blue smoke of Emma’s magic chokes her.

Regina closes her eyes. Emma’s disappearance takes her breath away.

“Mom?” Henry is holding her by both arms. “Mom? Where did she go?”

She looks at him and he looks at her and he knows.

“Can you make her come back?” He’s trying so hard not to cry. “You gotta make her come back.”

“She’s not in Storybrooke anymore, mijo.” Regina has no idea where Emma is. “I can’t sense her.”

“What have you done?” Snow’s voice is heavy with reproach. “You get her back here this instant. You hear me?”

“I can’t.” Regina turns to watch Snow’s face constrict with scorn.

“What have you done?” Snow accuses again.

“She’s not herself anymore. She’s in a permanent battle with the Darkness of the curse. It’s taking her over and she can’t win.”

“She was okay with us!” Henry is half-crying, half-screaming at his grandparents. “She was okay. She was calm and safe with us!” He sniflles and wipes his face with the back of his hand. “You had to come here and accuse Mom of everything wrong under the sun like you always do and now Ma is gone again.”

“Henry, sweetheart.” Regina feels her own tears burn her eyes.

“No, Mom, no.” He takes her hand. “It’s enough. You’re always cast as the villain, you’re always saving the day and getting spit in the face. We are the ones who are gonna save Emma, we’re gonna get her back. And you,” he points at his grandparents, his pain evident, “you stay out of the way, because you’re not helping. You’re demanding and judging and Emma doesn’t need that. She needs her family, the one she’s chosen. And, like it or not, she’s chosen my mom.”

“Henry!” Snow is scandalised, but David is holding her back, his head hanging low.

“That’s well done, your Majesty.” Hook is back on his feet. “What have you whispered in her ear through the dagger all this time? I mean, you had to have something for her, seeing how you’ve pined and brooded, going on about how she gave herself up for you.”

The gall of that pirate. The gall of that pirate after he literally guilted Emma into a relationship with him.

“I’d heard back in the Enchanted Forest that you enjoyed having your fun with your prisoners regardless of sex, but have you actually tricked Swan into your bed while she’s lost and weakened by the Dark Curse, after what she’s sacrificed for you?”

There’s a loud smack and blood splattered on her floor.

“You shut your mouth and get out of here before I finish what Emma started.” Red’s voice is iron and snarl.

Red opens the door for him. She looks at Regina, whose whole demeanor silently screams sadness and regret, before shoving Hook out and following him.

Snow is crying in David’s chest. Henry is still holding Regina’s hand but he’s visibly shaking.

“Is there nothing we can do to make her come back?” David asks. His tone is soft, sadness and worry color his face. What he’s really asking is if Regina can use the dagger.

“We’ll look, more, further, but magic won’t find her.” Emma will have made sure of it.

“I’m sorry,” David adds. “What Hook said—” David hesitates, visibly uncomfortable. It’s the thing with heroes, always in search for noble and grand gestures. They mean well. At what cost.

“I love her.” Her anger burns. The injustice. The price they always have her pay.

They don’t trust.

She doesn’t forgive.


	5. Sisters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Still upset from Emma’s disappearance the previous night, Regina meets up with David and visits Zelena.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Editors | @giors1 and @Devje
> 
> You can find me on Twitter and Tumblr. @Paradoxalpoised
> 
>  
> 
> [Setting | Events in this story take place several months after Emma has become the Dark One at the end of S05. The story is told in scenes during the months that follow in Regina’s life.]

* * *

#### Scene 9

Regina has barely slept. She has had to fight herself and Henry-niño to get him to school. He needs something to do. She has something to do.

David has called to ask if she’ll meet him. If she’ll see to Zelena with him. Excuses.

Nevertheless, she’s climbing the stairs to the Sheriff’s Station. She’s brought two coffees and a bear claw for him. She’s not sure why and she’s got little desire to find out.

“Oh, hi, Regina,” David greets her. “You never answered. I didn’t think you’d meet me.”

“I didn’t think I would either.” She places a to-go cup of coffee in front of him and drops the brown bag with his breakfast next to it.

“Thanks,” he says, contemplating the inside of the bag. “I never eat these because Emma likes them so much.”

“Hmm.” Regina remains standing, looking out the window. She watches the yellow school bus pass, no more stops before Storybrooke secondary school.

“I wanted to apologize for yesterday,” David says. She watches him combing his hand through his hair and rubbing the back of his neck.

“You didn’t do anything.” It’s Snow White who should be apologizing. It’s always Snow White who should be apologizing. “Has she sent you to do her dirty work?”

“No.” He winces. “She’s quite pissed actually. She’s having a hard time understanding how you and Emma went from mortal enemies to—” He lets it trail off.

“To what?” She asks, defiant.

“Lovers,” he finishes, with more backbone than she was expecting of him.

“It’s been a long time, Charming, believe it or not, fighting for our son, for our lives, for you and your lot of idiots.” Her voice cracks. She turns to the window again for a moment of reprieve. Enough time to compose herself. God, it’s hard. “It’s been there from the beginning. We simply didn’t realize that’s what we were feeling. At least I didn’t, not until I saw the Darkness swallow her whole instead of me.”

“She’s quite the hero.” There’s a small smile at the corner of his mouth. Emma’s little smug smile.

“She’s an idiot like you.” Regina is annoyed that his presence feels comfortable, simply because his daughter looks like him.

“Snow will come around.” David’s head is slightly to the side, leaning towards her. Looking for her acceptance. “Hook on the other hand has decided that you’ve manipulated Emma into being with you. His pride is badly injured.” He shrugs.

“He’s lucky it wasn’t something else.” Emma wanted to kill him. Regina felt it.

“That’s what I told him.” David smiles at her. His earnest, sugary sweet, puppy smile that is supposed to sway all women around him, and her.

She gives him a snarl of annoyance and rolls her eyes to the sky. “What do you want, David?”

“Like I said, I wanted to apologize, and,” he takes a deep breath, “I want to know how we get her back.”

“I don’t know,” Regina sighs. “I can’t sense her anywhere.” She and Henry spent the rest of the previous day in the Mercedes, Henry slowly driving them around while she was focusing on finding traces of Emma. Looking for the familiar sensation of their magic recognizing each other.

Nothing.

“Can you always sense her?” David asks. His voice is soft, patient.

“Yes.” Regina looks at him. Her eyes prickle the warning of tears about to assail her again.

“So she’s out of town?”

“That, or she’s concealing herself.” Regina is frustrated. She takes a sip of her forgotten coffee. It’s gone lukewarm. “Red and Lily have taken the Mustang to drive to Boston and all the other towns on the coastline on their way back. Red will find her, if Emma allows it.”

“You think she won’t?” David’s forehead creases.

Regina wraps her arms around her middle, she shakes her head.

David takes a deep breath. He stands up and Regina watches him hesitantly lay a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry we made her run from you. But I know she’ll come back. She’ll come back to you.”

She’s not about to let him pull her in an embrace.

She clears her throat, steps under and away from his touch and decides to change the subject. “You wanted us to see Zelena?”

“Uhm,” David hesitates, “I’ve kind of let her do what she wants since this all thing started.” He puts his hands in his jeans pockets, and the gesture is so Emma that this is getting harder and harder by the minute. “Since you said she’s helping.”

“She has,” Regina insists. Not that her relationship with her sister has vastly improved, but Zelena had soon forgotten her quest to murder Regina and taken with all her might to the idea of destroying the Dark One’s curse. As she’s put it, she wouldn’t be against killing Rumplestiltskin but, short of the opportunity, destroying his precious powers would be a lovely second prize. 

“She’s at the library with Jayce right now,” David nods, “but I wanted to talk to you about the pregnancy.”

“Has she taken ill?”

“No. I would have called you right away if something had gone wrong.” He sits on the edge of his desk. “No, it’s not that. I was just thinking that she’s quite far along now and I don’t think it’s good for her to stay alone at the apartment.”

David and Regina have agreed that Zelena should remain under surveillance, but that keeping her in a cell is hardly the place for a pregnant woman. Emma’s deputies have been taking turns with others including Marika to watch over Zelena. Regina herself has made a point to have Zelena over to the mansion, and to meet her at the Diner and other places the ‘gang’ gathers at.

“Is she being difficult?” Regina thinks maybe Zelena has been giving a hard time to the people caring for her, even though wearing the cuff.

“No,” David shakes his head, “I think she’s lonely and I’m afraid she’s getting depressed. Scared.”

“Marika would have told me if she was depressed,” Regina responds. “Has Zelena talked to you?”

“I bring her sweeties,” David is stubbornly looking at his shoes. “She had cravings for a while, you know? Pregnant woman stuff.”

“You’re as eloquent as your daughter.” Regina smiles slightly, her first smile since the events of the previous days. David is a kind man, as much as she doesn’t want to admit it. He’s a kind, good and honorable man. His heart is too big for his own good. “Let’s go see her.”

When they get to the library, Zelena is in a heightened conversation with Belle. To the uninitiated, it could seem heated, but the women are seemingly excited about new volumes of the history of the Land Belle has found in the magical library Merlin gave them access to. It’s the only good he’s been.

Jayce shrugs, smiles to Regina and shakes hands with David before he waves to Zelena and Belle and takes his leave.

“Oh, hello, Sis.” Zelena gives her an eerie smile that shows too many teeth not to feel disturbing. “I’m afraid I don’t have any news for you at present.”

“Regina,” Belle nods to Regina.

“Hello, Belle.” Regina approaches her sister and sits next to her. “I didn’t come with that purpose today.”

“Didn’t you?” Zelena’s eyebrow shoots up. “Robin paid me a visit to tell me he doesn’t want anything to do with the child when it’s born. He also told me your Emma has returned.”

Regina breathes in deeply. There is no mercy for her in this world or any other.

“I was hoping you would be willing to come stay with me and Henry at the house.” Regina surprises all parties in the room. Possibly herself as well.

“At your house?” Zelena sounds skeptical.

“With Henry and me,” Regina reiterates.

“Aren’t you concerned that I could try to kill you in your sleep?” Zelena asks the question that is probably on everyone’s mind.

Regina looks her sister in the eye. Zelena doesn’t need magic to hurt her, or Henry. But Zelena is family, just like Emma is. Zelena is her sister and she can’t allow the ridge their mother and Rumplestiltskin have drawn between them to keep separating them and feeding their bond with rivalry, jealousy and murder.

She has to start somewhere. Like with Emma, it begins with trust.

Regina places her hand on the cuff around Zelena’s forearm, the cuff that prevents her from using her magic. Her incredibly powerful magic. She focuses on opening the offensive artifact and discarding it. As she puts her hand on the skin of Zelena’s wrist this time, she feels the warmth of her sister’s magic coming back to life in a happy flow through her fingers.

“Just don’t kill me in my sleep,” Regina whispers in her ear. 

Zelena moans in delight and doesn’t turn any shades of green. Regina smiles at her.

Sisters.

They start by driving to Zelena’s apartment. It’s small, not that cosy. The furniture is comfortable enough; however the place feels more staged than inhabited. Nothing is wrong with the two-room apartment, it’s just not where Zelena belongs.

Maybe Regina ought to have noticed sooner.

“I’m sorry,” she says to her sister who is packing her clothes in a suitcase she’s made appear with magic.

“Whatever for?” Zelena asks as if Regina should be sorry for several things and she can’t pick one only.

“I should have asked you to come home with me much sooner.”

“Oh, well, I did try to murder you with great intent.” Zelena muses over her wardrobe, her back to Regina. She turns her head, “I also tried to ruin your happiness, although I really got that all wrong.”

Regina rolls her eyes. She blushes a tad, and turns her attention to Zelena’s suitcase, using her magic to fold the clothes on the bed in a perfect pile.

“I think the baby likes it.” Zelena cups her rather round and protuberant belly. “It’s moving differently.”

“Magic?” Regina supplies.

“Mhm,” Zelena imitates Regina and the rest of her clothes fly from the wardrobe neatly into the suitcase.

“There’s a good chance your child will be magical as we are.” Regina finds that she doesn’t mind that idea at all. Henry isn’t magical per se, but if he had been she wouldn’t have wished otherwise. Worried maybe. “Was Robin mean?”

“He was boring.” Zelena’s eyes light with mischief. “He said his piece about not wanting to care for the child if you won’t be with him to do it. Something about nothing good can actually come of me or my treachery. Something else about magic being wrong and Roland deserving his entire attention.”

“Roland does deserve a good home and a good parent.” Regina closes Zelena’s suitcase. “Maybe when things settle a bit, he’ll see reason. I don’t think he would abandon any of his children.”

“I think you underestimate his ego and righteousness.” Zelena moves to her livingroom and Regina follows. “In any case, no one has thought to ask me what I want for my baby.”

That definitely shuts Regina up. It’s true, she hasn’t asked. Thinking on it, she’s afraid that Robin had imagined all along that Regina would take the child away from her sister to raise it with him. He could not be more wrong.

“I think that’s precisely what he had in mind,” Zelena smiles at her and gathers a few volumes and papers on her writing desk.

“Did you just—” Regina breaks off and thinks, “ _read my mind?”_

_“Didn’t you ever do that before?”_ Zelena cocks her head to the side, waiting.

“No,” Regina answers. Shock.

“I suppose being sisters makes it easier,” Zelena explains. “And I wasn’t reading your mind, I just heard your thoughts.”

“I’m going to have to learn to think more quietly,” Regina scoffs.

Zelena’s face shuts. The change is subtle, but it’s clear Regina’s rejection has stung her.

“I—” Regina tries, somehow chagrined that she’s refused a new depth to their sisterly bond. “It’s quite unexpected is all.” She reaches for Zelena’s hand to take the heavy bag of books from her. Their fingers touch. The encounter of their magic doesn’t feel like it would with Emma, though it still feels welcome. She’s never experienced it with Zelena before. Not that she’s made a point of touching her before either.

“No matter.” Zelena’s shrugs and moves to the door. “David will be waiting for us.”

Regina also picks up the suitcase, the strain on her muscles welcome. In the hall, Zelena stops in her tracks.

“Are you sure you want me around?” Zelena asks. “I would hate it if you just offered out of pity. I don’t want your pity.”

Regina puts both bag and suitcase down, and stares at her sister for a moment. Zelena doesn’t move.

“I’ve been afraid of you and what you mean to me.” She takes a deep breath. “I’ve been afraid of your power.”

“Regina Mills, afraid.” Zelena smiles, smug. Amused.

“Yes.” Regina rolls her eyes. “I’ve been uncomfortable, I suppose.”

“Oh, Sis, you still are.”

“Henry likes you,” Regina changes the subject. She’s already exposed quite enough of her feelings.

“He’s a wonderful boy,” Zelena turns around and continues down the stairs. “I quite like him myself. He’s full of wit and has your defiance and dry humour. Lucky him, he’s sweet but not so sugary so that he looks like his grandfather.”

“I am ever so grateful he’s nothing like Snow White.” Regina joins her sister by the door of the building. “He’ll be thrilled to have you.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell.”

_“Tell what?”_

_“Your dirty thoughts.”_

Sisters.

David drops them at the mansion. Once in, Regina shows Zelena to her room, but before she unpacks, they make their way to the kitchen. Regina is hungry, she imagines Zelena must be, too.

She chops some onion and garlic, throws them in the wok with some olive oil. Slices some turkey breasts, throws that in, too. Cuts a big lemon in half, adds a twig of thyme. She lets it all sautée for a while, and when the turkey is golden, she adds a bit of low-fat sour cream to reduce and make a sauce. She’s got rice in the cooker, blanches some broccoli. Cooking gives her purpose, it helps her relax.

“It smells good,” Zelena interrupts her silence.

“What if I press you an orange?”

“That sounds lovely.”

“Henry only drinks orange juice if I press it for him,” Regina goes on. “It must be because I’ve given him the habit with pressed apple juice.”

She’s rambling. She doesn’t ramble. Dealing with Zelena in a group setting at the diner, the library or the Author’s mansion has made interactions with Zelena easy.

“I apologize.” Regina inhales. “This is new.”

“You keep apologizing,” Zelena accepts the glass of orange juice Regina has just pressed for her. “I think we’ve established I make you uncomfortable.”

“I think it’s fair to say you always have.” Regina turns back to the wok on the stove.

“And I’ve always envied you.” Zelena is looking down her glass when Regina glances at her over her shoulder.

“You haven’t turned any shade of green in a while.”

Zelena chuckles. “Maybe I always envied you the wrong things.”

Regina turns around and faces her sister. She takes her plate and serves her a healthy portion of lemony turkey on a bed of rice and broccoli. She’s not ready. There are going to be many more of these talks if they are to be sisters.

“Nurse Mbele reported you didn’t want to know the sex.” Regina has to start somewhere. She chews through a couple of mouthfuls of food while she waits for an answer.

“I guess there’s not much of a point. I don’t think this baby will be surrounded with joy.”

The words strike Regina hard enough that she drops her cutlery. Because they’re true. Because they shouldn’t be. Family.

“The way I found out—” Regina inhales. “Where I was at when I did—” She doesn’t know how to speak about Emma. She defended herself and the truth of her feelings to David, but she doesn’t speak of her feelings to anyone. No one’s ever cared. She studies her sister once more. She has to find a way. Courage.

“You never loved him,” Zelena goes on. “I should have seen it before, really, but I’m not good at love.” She dabs the corners of her mouth with her napkin. “You are in love with Emma.”

“I—Yes, I am.” She is.

“It was an accident, my getting pregnant. I did think lying in bed with him, the one said to be your true love, would be enough to break your spirit.” Zelena cups her belly. “It shouldn’t have happened. I know what to do for it not to happen.”

Regina sighs. “Can we start again?” She’s never been one for hope, softness or second chances. She’s not so blessed. The other shoe always drops. Never misses.

This baby should bask in joy and be loved by all the women in its life. The joy and love neither Regina nor Zelena were given by their mother.

_“I would like that,”_  Zelena presses in her mind. “ _Second chances and giving my child a loving family.”_

Regina nods and smiles. She misses Emma. She’s a bleeding mess. A wounded beast clawing for the relief of her master’s hand. 

Yet, she has family. People of blood and choice. They love her. They put their effort, their trust and faith in her. People of blood and choice. Hers.

“We are powerful, Sister.” Zelena smiles mischievous and her magic flares, passion and tingles up Regina’s spine. “You, me, the dog, the dragon, even the heroes.” She rolls her eyes and feigns a gag. “Not only will we find her, we will find a way to get the Darkness out of her bones and crush it once and for all.” Zelena curls her fist in slow delight. “Then I shall have my victory and you shall have your love.”

“We shall have our revenge on this miserable life we were both brought to by treason and greed.”

Zelena smiles her triumphant and slightly psychotic smile, reminding Regina of the Queen, of Her, and both their darkness.

She finds she doesn’t mind.

Sisters.


	6. Mess

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emma visits Regina at night, herself and not, her battle against the Darkness mostly lost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Editors | @giors1 and @Devje
> 
> You can find me on Twitter and Tumblr. @Paradoxalpoised
> 
>  
> 
> [Setting | Events in this story take place several months after Emma has become the Dark One at the end of S05. The story is told in scenes during the months that follow in Regina’s life.]

 

* * *

 

#### Scene 10

“Emma.” Regina shivers.

“Now, now, Regina.” Emma is already flush against her, sucking up her breaths of tension and intense relief. “Don’t you have a warmer body to play with?”

Emma’s body isn’t cold. It’s burning. It’s burning her. It’s burning for her.

Emma thinks she is cold, because that’s how the Darkness feels to her. It gives Regina solace, that Emma thinks her darkness is cold. It means she hasn’t surrendered.

“Robin doesn’t sleep here anymore, Emma, you know that,” Regina says. Robin hasn’t been invited to the house, to the crypt, to her office since the first night Emma came home.

Emma knows. Emma asks. Emma demands.

Emma comes to her in the dead of their darkest nights. When she can’t help herself. When the Dark One and Emma want the same thing. Emma never wins. Never stays.

“Emma,” Regina gasps as Emma lifts her up on the edge of her desk, in her study, hands kneading at her ass.

Both Regina’s arms are at her sides, she’s still holding the dagger. She can’t forget the dagger.

The dagger. The Dark One. Emma.

Emma’s fingers are scratching at her thighs, lifting her skirt up as she presses herself between Regina’s legs.

“Why doesn’t he sleep here?” Emma purrs in her ear as she takes her lobe in her mouth and reaches past her garterbelts.

“You know why,” Regina says, lifting her left arm, threading her fingers through Emma’s hair, holding onto her.

“Tell me,” Emma kisses her jawline, her throat, leaves her throat for her chest. For more flesh. More contact. More.

Emma knows. Emma asks. Emma demands.

Emma’s lips burn her skin, her nerves, her insides. Emma’s fingers caress her, press her, tease her. She’s soaked. Her panties pushed aside.

Regina lifts her knees to Emma’s hips. Tight.

“Because I’m yours,” she says. There’s no battle here. Forfeit.

“Mine.” Emma enters her. Two fingers in, thumb to her clitoris, because Regina is tight and even as the beast lurks and feeds and feasts, Emma never hurts her.

“Yes, mi cielo, yours,” Regina moans. Each word with each thrust. Again and again.

She clenches on Emma’s fingers inside of her because the pleasure is such. She kisses her brow, her cheeks, her lips, because at last. She offers her mouth to Emma’s tongue, because she trusts. She arches her back into Emma’s hand because she desires.

“Come,” Emma orders like she controls her. “Come,” Emma whines like she needs it. “Come,” Emma begs like the forgiveness she craves.

Emma knows. Emma asks. Emma demands.

Regina arches, lets her head fall back, fully supported by Emma. She comes around Emma’s fingers, feeling her pleasure descend from her chest, through her belly to the hand claiming her.

There’s nothing to forgive.

She cradles Emma’s head to her chest, waiting for what comes next.

Emma’s fingers leave her slowly, grab ahold of her blouse in a fist. Emma grunts. Heaves. Dry sobs. She feels the drool soak through silk. No tears. No more tears.

Regina holds her. She caresses her and soothes her with all the words she knows do not make a difference.

She undoes Emma’s fist with her free hand, lets herself fall to her feet. She intertwines their fingers, still damp from her wetness. Emma wipes her face. She looks at Regina, red rimmed eyes, dark with power. Hair knotted and tempestuous. Jaw set in disgust for herself.

“You need more.” Regina tugs on her hand and leads on. “Come.”

They climb the stairs, Emma behind her, the dagger heavy in Regina’s hand. They reach her bedroom in a silence she has no intention of breaking. Not now.

She leads them to her bed. With a thought, their clothes disappear. She sets the dagger on her nightstand.

All Emma has to do is reach for it, not for her. Regina hopes Emma will choose what now rests In her hand instead.

Regina can see the violent battle vibrating Emma’s body. She can feel the tremors without touching her. But Emma strongly pulls her wrist to between her legs. Regina feels the heat. She uses her fingertips to part Emma’s labia, coats her knuckles and the base of the sturdy glass dildo she’s about to attach to Emma. She rubs and feels and senses with her fingers.

Arousal. Sex. Feelings.

They’re such a mess.

Regina pushes, fingertips, dildo. She strokes the length of protuding glass with Emma’s wetness. She watches Emma prisoner in her cage. She leans in, kisses Emma’s parted lips, feels the head of cold glass tap her abdomen.

She kisses. She consoles.

“I want you to come home. Not just to me,” Regina says. “You need to eat. You need to see Henry. You need to be here.”

Emma shakes her head. “I would kill them all.”

“Don’t make me summon you.” She will. She loathes using the dagger on Emma but she absolutely will.

She is not Snow. She won’t be weak. Fooled by the Darkness. Losing sight of Emma in the midst of the fallen bodies on her battlefield.

She pushes Emma back on her bed, climbing into her lap, straddling her. They’ve kept their encounters to the basement. Emma hasn’t come back to this room, that Regina wants to be their bedroom.

No more Robin Hood. No more Darkness.

She looks into Emma’s eyes. She looks for that madness that binds them. She feels their passion in her blood. In Emma’s fingers on her back. In the thrust of Emma’s hips penetrating her, not too hard, not too gentle.

“Emma,” she chants breathily in Emma’s ear.

She moans and rides. Emma’s fingers dig into the skin of her hips, of her ass.

Rhythm. Up and down. In and out.

The house is full. Its inhabitants sleeping or not. No matter. Emma is here with her. They belong to one another and the whole world can know it. She doesn’t care.

She doesn’t want to tame her demons. Even if she keeps them on a leash.

They’re kissing. Bruising. Biting.

Each move of her hips meeting Emma’s is tearing screams out off both of them.

“Tell me,” Emma breathes in her ear.

Emma knows. Emma asks. Emma demands.

“I love you.” Regina’s voice trembles with every thrust of Emma’s inside her. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

Emma lifts her up and around, lying her on the bed. Regina crosses her ankles on the small of Emma’s back.

Deep inside of her. So deep. So good. So full.

Regina is losing herself, losing her bearings, losing reality. All there is is Emma. Emma inside her.

“Regina.” Emma pushes and grunts, her muscles so taut under Regina’s fingers. Her breath labored.

Moans and whines and spasms.

Emma screams into her mouth as she comes deep inside of her. She sends Regina spiralling with her own orgasm.

Pulsing. Clenching. Dying the small death of their pleasure together.

She wraps Emma in her arms and pulls her close against her. In their sweat. In their scent.

In their mess.


	7. Monsters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Regina has agreed to meet Robin at the diner as they have unfinished business, but their uncomfortable confrontation is soon interrupted by Emma.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Editors | @giors1 and @Devje
> 
> You can find me on Twitter and Tumblr. @Paradoxalpoised
> 
>  
> 
> [Setting | Events in this story take place several months after Emma has become the Dark One at the end of S05. The story is told in scenes during the months that follow in Regina’s life.]

 

* * *

 

#### Scene 11

The bell chimes as she enters the diner for a meeting she’s not excited to have. It’s the first Monday after Thanksgiving. After they got their Christmas tree with Red and Lily’s help on Sunday. After a Thanksgiving dinner that would have been wonderful if only Emma had returned to them.

But Emma has not come home. And Regina has not used the dagger. For she doesn’t know who would stand before her.

It’s snowing. She’s been feeling colder with each passing day bringing her to today. Since Robin asked to see her.

Red is working the late shift, she’s made sure of it. The afternoon is lazy, the patrons are few. She is safe but for the anxiety weighing on her chest.

Robin is sitting in one of the far booths, his back to the door, his head low over the cup he’s nursing in his hand. Red is drying mugs behind the counter. She nods to Regina when she comes in and puts her kitchen towel underneath the bar before starting on Regina’s latte.

The sound of Regina’s steps are covered by the whistle of milk being heated and foamed by the nozzle of the espresso machine. It’s better that way, if for Robin jumping as he realizes she’s sitting in front of him.

“Robin,” Regina greets him, “you wanted to see me.”

“Hello, Regina.” Robin stands. “Yes, I wanted to talk.”

Red brings Regina’s latte and gives a squeeze to her shoulder before leaving them to their conversation.

“I’m listening,” Regina says. She’s in no hurry to lead this discussion.

“I guess maybe I just want to understand.” Robin turns his mug in his hand. He’s drinking tea. “I mean, I thought we were soulmates. I thought after everything that happened, and losing Marian, just all the horrible things we’ve been through and that came between us—we finally had a chance.”

“It wasn’t what you thought, Robin.” Regina exhales some of the tension clogging her throat. “I am sorry if you feel I led you on. I suppose I did.”

“You were in love with her all this time?” His surprise annoys her, as if the idea that she could prefer women is not registering with him.

“I was in love with her from the first moment she knocked on my door.” Regina takes a deliberate sip of coffee and looks Robin dead in the eye. “I’ve loved women since I was just a young woman myself.”

“Back in the Land?” He’s offended. She’s irritated.

“Yes, Robin, back in the Land, and all this time on Earth. Men have always been a means to an end to me. With the exception of my first adolescent love, I’ve never been in love with a man.”

He looks like he’s about to cry. Maybe she’s being harsh when she doesn’t need to be. He’s not a bad man. He’s not a manipulator or an opportunist. He’s honorable and kind. For all intents and purposes, he’s a man that a woman could love and be happy with.

Just not her.

“I cared for you very much, and Roland.” She smiles, thinking of the little boy she misses. “You’re the first man I really let in my life. I know it wasn’t what you wanted. But it was what I could give.”

“Yeah, of course, you cared for me.” She waits for him to school himself, make up his mind between aggression and understanding, and choose his next words. “Why be with me at all?”

She hesitates to tell him the truth. He’s hurt already, but he must feel it, too. “Because they said you were my soulmate. Because of this immovable, inexorable force that is the will of the Land. This destiny that has to be obeyed. Because when I don’t, someone I love dies. I always pay a terrible price for my defiance.”

“You felt coerced into being with me?” He’s cocked his head to the side, he has tears falling.

“I—” She doesn’t want to say yes. It hurts. It’s embarrassing. It’s pathetic. “Emma sacrificed herself for me to have a chance at happiness.”

“But you were never happy!” His voice booms and the agitation jolts her.

She bites the inside of her cheek. “No, I was never happy, but we both know neither were you. You chose Marian, you’ve loved Marian. Being with me was the easy and safe thing to do.” She straightens in her seat. “And, yes, coercion applies.”

“I thought we had a chance, together, raising the children.” He wipes his tears, then he threads his fingers through his hair and massages the nape of his neck. “The new baby, finding peace in Storybrooke, in this world without magic.”

“You’ll find this world is never truly without magic.” There’s no need to dwell on the past. And she has something else in mind. “We were never going to raise my sister’s child together, Robin, I’m not in the business of separating mothers from their newborns.”

“Come now, Regina, you can’t think she’s fit to raise a child?!”

“On the contrary.” Regina’s mug makes a clinking sound when she puts it down. “I think given the proper support and appreciation, she’ll surprise anyone who thinks like you do.”

“I can’t believe you actually think that.” He shakes his head. “She’s a murderer!”

“So am I,” Regina deadpans, as serious as death.

“She killed my wife!” Robin raises his voice.

“And she’s my sister!” Regina stands. “I will not abandon her and take her baby from her breast because she’s made a terrible mistake.”

Robin stands in turn. “She should at least be in prison for the rest of her days. If we were back in the Land,l she’d be burnt to the stake for being a murderous witch!”

“Well, well, well—” Conversations die, patrons hold their breath. Regina doesn’t need to see to know who the voice belongs to, although it has a tone she’s never heard before. Another hand squeezes her shoulder.

Emma has returned.

“What have we here?” Emma’s fingers grip her shoulder harder. “A queen in the company of a thief.”

Regina and Robin are standing in front of each other by the side of their booth.

“Emma.” Regina’s speaks Emma’s name with the intention of capturing her attention away from Robin and everyone else in the diner. “I’m so happy you’re here.”

“No, you’re not.” The Darkness is out for blood. “You’re sitting here with him.”

Robin’s mug cracks. Tea spills on the table.

“He was taking his leave.” At her words most patrons depart at once. The bell chimes again and again. Regina stares at Robin, willing her intention to be clear. He’s not a coward, but if he doesn’t leave soon he’ll be brave and dead.

Robin grabs his leather jacket. “I’ll be going now.”

“Hmmm.” Emma’s bruising fingers take hold of her hand and pull Regina to her. She’s in Emma’s embrace and enraptured before she can resist. “I think not, my love.”

Her back is turned to all else, she can only look at Emma.

An Emma who is now truly the Dark One.

Her hair is pinned tight in an intricate bun, so blonde it’s a stark contrast with the black of her clothes, from tall leather boots to the riding breeches, military-like jacket and lengthy coat of beautiful tailored. There is gold trim around her collar and on the front of her coat down to the sleeve. An expanse of midnight blue shirt seems of the same shade as Emma’s pupils, and the magic swirling in them.

She’s resplendent. Death in a glove of velvet.

Emma smiles at Regina. Suddenly the world is lost to her. “Did you miss me?”

“Yes.” Regina doesn’t hesitate.

“Why are you with him?” Emma doesn’t look to anyone but her.

“I wanted to confront him about Zelena’s baby.”

The arm around her waist presses hard enough that she feels constricted. “Do not lie to me, Regina.”

“Emma, you’re hurting me.” Regina forces a step back. “Let me go.”

“Why? Don’t you want to be in my arms?” Emma releases her completely. “Do you enjoy his more? Or maybe I should tear his arms from their sockets. Yes, that way he wouldn’t be able to touch you anymore.” Emma makes to walk past Regina.

“I don’t want anyone else’s arms but yours, Emma.” Regina takes hold of Emma’s forearms and stares into Emma’s eyes again. “But I won’t be bullied into them.”

Emma looks down. Hopefully now Regina can regain her footing in this confrontation.

“Robin,” she says, “I think it’s time you left.”

Emma hisses, showing her teeth to Regina.

Regina steps into Emma’s arms, she pushes past her and pulls them both towards the bathroom. “Forget about him,” she whispers, pausing only to kiss Emma’s lips.

The bell chimes again, for the few patrons left and, Regina hopes, for Robin and Red.

They pass the threshold of the bathroom’s small lobby. The light is dimmed. Regina gazes at Emma and her own hands travelling Emma’s arms, her sides under her coat, her chest. She leans in for the kiss she craves. Emma’s lips are hard on hers, her tongue strong in her mouth.

Emma’s face is in her neck, kissing, biting. She undoes the first two buttons of Regina’s blouse and takes a deep breath. Regina wraps her arms around Emma’s neck. She unpins the bun and threads her fingers through Emma’s hair.

Emma’s left hand cups Regina’s breast, while her right arm is around her waist. Emma kneads her breast, kisses her exposed chest.

“Emma,” Regina pants. Her breath is labored. Her chest is heaving. She’s wet.

Emma kisses her again. Passion. Violence.

“I’m going to fuck you so hard you remember who you belong to.” Emma pushes them against the wooden post of the stall. Regina collides with the sharp angle and whimpers. The wind is knocked out of her and a sharp pain is searing in the back of her head.

“Emma—” Emma’s tongue in her mouth interrupts her.

Regina pushes the coat off Emma’s shoulder. It pools at their feet. She pushes and pulls until Emma’s jacket opens and she can tug on Emma’s blouse. She sighs her relief when she feels the warmth of Emma’s skin under her fingertips. She needs Emma to be real.

Emma’s hips dig into hers. She tries to lift her left leg up Emma’s hip but her skirt is in the way. She shudders when Emma leans down and her hands slide past her knees, lifting her skirt. With it hiked up around her hips, Emma kneels between her legs and lifts Regina’s left leg on her shoulder. Regina wants Emma’s mouth on her.

Emma kisses and nips and elicits a scream from Regina when she bites her at the top of her thigh, just before her labia. Regina’s fingers find purchase in Emma’s hair. “Emma—fuck, Emma—” Emma pries her open with her tongue and licks a pattern from her entrance to her clitoris. “I’ve missed you so much.” Emma has stopped visiting her at night several weeks ago.

Emma slowly pushes two fingers inside Regina. “Tell me who you belong to.”

Regina clenches on Emma’s fingers. Her hips rock on Emma’s hand. She rolls back and forth to Emma’s mouth. Emma’s thrusts inside of her.

“Tell me who you belong to.”

“You,” Regina breathes, “I belong to you.” And she does. She wants Emma’s mouth on her clitoris and she wants Emma’s fingers to fuck her as deep as she can take them. She wants Emma to know. She wants Emma to feel. She wants.

Regina answers Emma’s claim with her entire body. She forgets where they are. She forgets who they are.

When Emma takes her clitoris in her mouth, Regina moans her pleasure. Her entire body tenses. She feels her orgasm grow in her belly and her cry rise in her chest.

They are such a mess. There’s no more turning back. Spiralling.

Magic is possessing them. It makes the air thicker. It heightens their emotions. Despite the uncontrolled tension rippling around them, Regina wants only to commune with Emma. She focuses, closes her eyes. She can hear Emma.

‘ _Regina, Regina, Regina_ —’ Emma’s mind is chanting.

‘ _I love you, Emma Swan_.’ Regina uses their bond. She holds onto it, to its singularity and its taste. ‘Come back to me.’

Emma only increases the rhythms of her thrusts and her tongue sucking her clitoris. Regina is going to come incessantly.

A familiar presence has Regina open her eyes. Red is frozen by the door of the bathroom. Her eyes dart in all directions as she absorbs the scene before her. When Red stares at her, Regina expects horror, judgement. She hopes for Red’s understanding.

She’s met by the intensity of the power beneath Red’s skin. The moonlight in her eyes. The beast.

Overwhelmed by Emma, caught into Red, Regina comes undone. The world is a purple explosion. She cries out uncontrollably under the force of her orgasm.

When she opens her eyes anew, her monsters have gone.

She lets herself slide down the post to the cold tile of the bathroom floor. She sobs until tears, snot and drool have left her dry and ruined.

Desperate animals.


	8. Lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Together at the diner, the gang is having dinner and discussing what they know and how they could destroy the Darkness when Emma interrupts them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Editors | @giors1 and @Devje
> 
> You can find me on Twitter and Tumblr. @Paradoxalpoised
> 
>  
> 
> [Setting | Events in this story take place several months after Emma has become the Dark One at the end of S05. The story is told in scenes during the months that follow in Regina’s life.]

 

* * *

 

#### Scene 12

“Hey.” Regina leans against the doorframe of the diner’s kitchen.

“Hey, Regina.” Red is cooking. They’re having breakfast for dinner, Henry-niño’s choice.

Regina reveals the bouquet of violets, honeywort and sweet alyssum she’s picked from her garden to gift Red.

“You got me flowers?” Red smiles, taking the bouquet and holding it to her chest. “I think it’s the first time someone has offered me flowers.”

“It’s fitting, since I’m trying to earn your forgiveness.” Regina has learned with Red that she doesn’t like beating around the bush. And that, underneath her incredible magical power and savagery, the girl has a beautiful heart.

“Forgiveness?” Red cocks her head to the side.

“You’ve been avoiding me.” For over two weeks.

Red blushes. Regina smiles.

Red rolls her eyes, and disappears from the kitchen, only to come back with a vase. Regina flips the pancakes that Red has abandoned.

“I haven’t.” Red comes to stand hip to hip with Regina, not looking at her. She pours more batter on the griddle.

“You haven’t been at the house, my fridge is full of food you haven’t eaten and your clothes in the den are untouched. Also I cooked lasagna last weekend and you didn’t show for dinner.”

Regina has missed Red. She dislikes it. She dislikes that, since Emma became the Dark One, she has become attached to and emotionally compromised by these women who have found their way into her distrustful heart. She has learnt to know them, trust them. Family.

The last time Red and Regina saw each other, she was being fucked by Emma Swan in the diner’s bathroom.

“I wasn’t trying—”

“You called Zee.”

“Okay, fine.” Red takes a deep breath. “I was embarrassed.”

“Embarrassed? Red, I’m sorry for what you saw, it was not my intention—It went there and I didn’t stop it. I was worried for your safety, and Robin’s, and everyone else’s.”

“It’s not that. I didn’t know what to do—it appealed to me.” Regina looks at the flushed side of Red’s face. She leans in to catch her gaze. Red stutters, “You were—you are crazy beautiful and I know what I saw and all of the sudden the wolf was right there and I—I wanted you.”

“I see.” Regina ponders what Red has said.

It’s not unexpected. They’ve become close. It has happened, easy and fast. The mansion has become Red’s second home. She comes for dinner, she hangs out with Henry and plays video games, she stays for movie night, she runs a perimeter around the house at night. Regina and Red fit well with each other. The wolf loves her and Regina loves the wolf. She also loves the girl.

“Yeah,” Red shrugs and focuses on scrambling eggs in a large skillet. “I also wanted to attack Emma.”

“Attack her?” She’s not avoiding Red’s confession, but her instincts intrigue Regina. “Why?”

“Because she roughed you up!” Red turns to face Regina, the spatula in her hand and her stance defensive. “You were scared, Regina, I felt it. That’s why I stayed when everyone left. My wolf wanted to protect you because Emma hurt you and because you’re my pack.”

“Emma wouldn’t hurt me.” Regina refuses to imagine Emma willing to do her harm. She’s aware it will happen eventually.

“She would have killed Robin if you hadn’t distracted her.” Red reserves the scrambled eggs in a serving dish with a lid. “She certainly wanted to kill him. I felt that too.”

“She hasn’t visited me since,” Regina insists. “She hasn’t tried for the dagger yet. She must feel remorse still.”

“Yeah, with you. She’s been visiting Snow. Telling her how she’s got control over the Darkness, that she could come back home, if only she had the dagger, it would be safer. That if she had it, it could not be used against her or to make her do horrible things.”

“Why am I only hearing about this now?” It irks Regina that Snow and David haven’t tried to contact her, that Red has known this and not shared with her.

“Because you’re biased.” Red gets bacon out of the oven and stacks it in another serving dish. “Because she will manipulate your love for her just as much as she does Snow’s. She would lure you into forgetting what she is.”

“I’m not gullible, thank you very much.”

“No, you’re in love,” Red deadpans. “And I’m not ready to risk your life to find out how far it goes against Emma’s violence.”

Regina wants to retort. She wants to tell Red that her worries are misplaced. The truth is that Emma has been frightening. Volatile anger and destructive depression.

Emma visits Snow. Not her anymore.

The betrayal stings but doesn’t exactly surprise Regina. It was to be expected that, after Emma succumbed to the Darkness, it would corrupt her entirely.

Regina wants Emma. She misses Emma. But the Dark One cannot insinuate herself into the safety of her home. Regina will not have this Emma around their son.

That Regina still wants her in her bed is the last strand of her weakness. She can’t bear the thought of losing Emma entirely.

Regina wipes a lonely tear under Red’s scrutiny. Red reaches for Regina’s hand and pulls her in an embrace. Uncomfortable at first, Regina closes her eyes and listens for Red’s wild brand of magic. The wolf is strong and fierce. It has grown to be a source of warmth and safety in her bond with the girl.

“I don’t want you to stay away,” Regina whispers on Red’s skin, her arms around her neck.

“Then I won’t,” Red says, her arms tight around Regina.

“Regina?”

“Yes?” She hears Red sniffs the air.

“We’re burning the pancakes.”

Regina and Red have a mending laugh. Burnt pancakes end up in the trash and Regina brings the first part of their food to the table.

“Dinner is served,” she announces as she reaches their gang.

“I’m starving.” Zelena is so pregnant her belly looks like it’s ready to burst. “Henry, why don’t you come sit next to me?”

“I’m not hungry.”

Regina looks at him. Another day spent searching for clues. Another day of dead ends and disappointment. They haven’t been able to get past the major issue stopping them from saving Emma from the Darkness. Despondent.

“I doubt that,” Zee insists. “I can hear your stomach rumbling from here.”

Regina puts the serving dish of bacon on the table and walks over to Henry, sitting in the first booth by the window. “You need to eat, mijo.”

“We’re getting nowhere,” he tells her when she sits next to him and takes his hand in hers.

“We’ve made a lot of progress understanding how the Dark One’s Curse works.” Regina intertwines their fingers. “I share your frustration, Henry, I miss Emma, too. We will find a way to get her back. It’s only a matter of time now.”

“When we found Merlin, I thought we were on the right path. But, apart from his access to the magical library, he did nothing for us. His knowledge about the Darkness was completely useless and there are so many books to read, so much information to cover. How are we ever gonna make this work for us?”

“Because we are all powerful and smart, Henry,” Maleficent joins them in the booth they’re sitting at. “There is a lot of material to go through, but none of us is giving up.”

“Hey, Hen,” Red calls to him from behind the counter. ”I’ve got your shake and food’s getting cold. Come on, kid, more eating, less brooding.”

Henry chuckles and goes sit by his aunt. Lily serves him a neat pile of hash, bacon and eggs next to a stack of pancakes. Regina smiles. Their family has grown beside them. Women of all ages, but each of them unique in their intent and motivation to help Regina and Henry return the true Emma to herself and to them.

The loss of Emma has taken its toll on Regina and Henry, but it has brought their little gang together. It has given birth to more love than Regina has ever known. She has friends now. Real friends who care and who support her. She has rediscovered old love and embraced a love she had always deprived herself of.

Regina wishes for Emma’s return with all her soul, but she knows in her heart that she won’t be able to be happy unless she can share in that happiness with the women sitting around her.

Despite her sadness and the cruel bite of Emma’s absence, it gives her hope and contentment.

Everyone is eating away their appetite. They’ve had a long day of research, brainstorming and coordination of their search for a solution to save Emma.

When they get to the last of the pancakes and the sipping of coffee, tea, and noisy milkshakes, Lily clears her throat. “So, Red and I have been talking, and we think it’s time we choose some sort of a plan regarding what we’re gonna do about Emma.”

Red nods her agreement. “Emma’s been seen around town, and it’s clear she’s trying to leverage a way to get the dagger.”

“We think it’s only a matter of time before she—” Lily leans toward Henry, “I’m sorry, Henry, I know this is hard but you’re part the team and this needs to be said—we think it’s not going to be long now before she attacks or she tries to pit us against one another in order to get her hands on the dagger.”

“What happened here a couple of weeks back has shown Emma is lost to the Darkness.” Red puts her hand on Regina’s. “She’s lost her humanity.”

Maleficent crosses her legs. “It’s obvious the Darkness is gaining on her, but it won’t suddenly give us a plain view of the way to go about this. Maybe we should start by regrouping and look at what we know.”

“Okay, then,” Lily starts, “Emma has been the Dark One for over eight months now.”

“And we found Merlin last summer,” Red goes on. “Merlin has confirmed that the only way he knows to get the Darkness out of Emma is to kill her.”

“Free of a host, the Darkness will choose the one who has the heart with most potential for darkness and magical power,” Regina says. “It came for me because I was the most obvious target after the Darkness left Gold, but then Emma called it to her using the dagger.”

“Which means,” Zelena says, “that the Darkness is tethered to the dagger by an enchantment.”

“Legend says,” Maleficent repeats what they all know, “the one that will kill the Dark One with the dagger bearing his name will in turn become the Dark One.”

“And the Apprentice believed that only Merlin could destroy the Darkness.” Henry goes on, “I was there when he explained all of it in Mr. Gold’s shop.”

“You never told us the exact story, Hen,” Red says.

“The Apprentice told us that, centuries ago, Merlin the Sorcerer was at war with the Darkness. He wasn’t able to destroy it so he created the Dark One’s curse by forcing the Darkness into the heart of a host and attaching it to the dagger forever. It’s the only thing the Dark One can be controlled with, but it can’t be destroyed.

“When we found Mr. Gold at the shop, he was unconscious and Mrs. French told us that the Darkness had completely taken his heart over and was killing him. The Apprentice tried to save him. He tried to get the Darkness outside of Mr. Gold’s heart. He put the hat next to Mr. Gold and pulled it open. He took his heart out of his chest like Mom does, and then he recited an incantation, it was so intense I remember it by heart:

“Purest evil blackest soul,  
Darkness too can find its doom.  
Never dying but contained,  
Bound inside the falcon’s chamber.  
Shorn of anger thornless danger,  
There forever to remain.

“Then the Sorcerer’s hat absorbed the Darkness from Mr. Gold’s heart and magic erased his name from the dagger. The Apprentice put his heart back in his chest and did a spell to preserve Mr. Gold until his heart beats again.”

“Obviously, it didn’t work,” Zelena muses.

“No,” Henry says. “The hat kind of blew up and the Darkness came out. It attacked the Apprentice but Ma used her magic to force it out of him before it could take hold. Then it went away into the night.”

“To find me,” Regina concludes.

“Yes.” Henry is defeated.

“Belle told me what Rumple’s motives were for using the Sorcerer’s hat.” Zelena takes a sip of her tea. “Of course they weren’t at all honorable,” she scoffs, “but what else to expect from Rumplestiltskin? His intention was to cleave himself from the dagger so he wouldn’t be the Dark One anymore, henceforth stopping the Darkness from overcoming his heart entirely and killing him.” Zelena takes a deep, short breath. “Pity, really. Anyway, he had planned to absorb enough magical power in the hat, including Emma’s and mine, by the time the stars in the sky would align with the stars on the hat, and then he would sacrifice the heart of someone who knew him before he became the Dark One—clearly Hook in this instance—to free himself from the Darkness.”

“He was going to transfer the Dark One’s curse onto Hook without dying,” Lily says. “If only we could find a way to gather enough magic, we could get the Darkness to leave Emma.”

“Could we use the incantation the Apprentice recited?” Henry asks.

“I doubt it would work again,” Maleficent explains. “The Darkness has heard it once, and knows to fight it. We can’t surprise it again with the same incantation, if it could work more than once anyway. Emma would fight back.”

“There is still the issue of sacrificing someone else’s heart in exchange for Emma’s,” Zelena says. “And the fact that the Sorcerer’s hat is gone, and with it the alignment of stars we would need.”

“I found something in Mother’s journals,” Regina ventures. Everyone else quiets down and looks at her. “She wrote that if the Dark One is killed without the use of the dagger, he or she will expel the powers of the Dark One into the air after death and without anyone else being next in line to inherit them, they will pass from this world.”

“Cora was a minx,” Maleficent blurts out. “She seduced Rumplestiltskin into offering her deals that would manipulate him to teach her magic and help her ascend socially.”

“She was a monster,” Regina says, looking at Zelena. “She destroyed many lives.”

There have been no disputes since Zelena moved in with them. Regina wants to keep it that way. She doesn’t want her sister to feel she had the better home because their mother kept her, and not Zelena.

‘ _She showed her true colors when she abandoned you, Zee_ ,’ Regina imprints on their mental connection. ‘ _I was only ever a means to an end_.’

Zelena is troubled, Regina can sense it. She has to trust her sister to hang on to the right things, lest she sends her over the edge and Zelena turns green.

‘ _I will always be jealous, but I saw what she did with you. I refuse to let her or Rumple tear us apart. I won’t be twisted again_.’

There is no way to make up for lost time, but Regina and Zelena have become close over the couple of months Zelena has been home with her. They talk, they share, they learn. Zelena became Zee. Her sister. Henry’s aunt. An irreplaceable addition to their family.

“We can’t kill Emma to destroy the Darkness, and we can’t sacrifice someone else’s heart to save her either,” Henry says, effectively bringing Regina and Zelena back to the conversation at hand.

“No, mijo,” Regina tells him, “but what we know is that we can take the Darkness away from Emma’s heart without her death. We need to find out how and separately, we need to find out how to destroy the Darkness itself.”

“Something Merlin himself could not do.” Lily’s tone is full of doubt.

“Oh, my darling,” Maleficent retorts, legs and arms crossed, smug and confident, “together, we are so much more powerful than the Sorcerer, and so much more imaginative.”

“You will destroy the Darkness if it’s the last thing you do?” Red challenges her.

“We will,” Zelena surprises them all, “I know it.”

The slow clapping sound has Regina shudder with fear and anticipation. This time, she decides, she won’t let Emma have her way.

“Emma—” Regina starts, standing.

“How lovely of you all,” Emma drawls, heavy with scorn. “Having another one of your merry gatherings on how to save poor Emma Swan from her terrible fate.”

She’s standing with her back resting against the counter, her legs crossed. She’s wearing the same gold trimmed jacket and coat, matching the gold of her hair and the jet black of her boots. She’s twirling and whirling royal blue smoke around and in between her fingers. A show of power. Threat.

“Emma!” Henry calls to his mother.

“My beautiful boy,” Emma smiles at him, “won’t you come and give your dear mother a hug?”

The tension in his body must be palpable because Zee places her hand on his shoulder and says to him, “She’s not herself.”

“And neither are you.” Emma pushes herself off the counter in an ample movement and points a finger to Zelena. “Oh, Aunt Zee, you look better in green!”

Zelena’s skin turns a deep shade of green.

“Shush, you.” Emma chuckles. “Everyone should show their true nature after all!”

Red jumps in front of Emma and growls, suddenly in her wolf self.

All eyes turn to Maleficent and Lily.

Regina’s heart breaks. “Emma, that’s enough!”

“Don’t worry, my love.” Emma steps closer to Regina, forcing Red to lie on the floor in submission. “The dragons would make a mess.”

Regina has the dagger tightly in her fist at her side. Emma’s fingers are twitching.

Red whimpers as Emma wraps an arm around Regina’s waist. Emma gazes into her eyes and for a moment they are lost to the world. Emma cups her cheek with her free hand. Regina’s grasp on the dagger doesn’t falter when Emma kisses her.

The kiss is slow and languorous.

“Give it to me,” Emma whispers on the skin below her ear. “Give it to me, and I’ll stay.”

Regina stares. She holds on to her sanity and the dagger with all her might.

“I miss you,” Emma tells her on her lips. “I want to come home.”

The monster is sinuous. It speaks to her pain. It charms it. Serpent.

Emma’s hand caresses the skin of Regina’s shoulder, at the end of her sleeveless dress.

“I miss you at night,” Emma whispers against her throat.

She lets her fingertips follow the bulge of Regina’s bicep and the curve of the inside of her elbow.

“I want to wake up with you in the morning.”

Her hand closes on Regina’s wrist.

“Give it to me.” The sound is almost imperceptible but the warmth of her breath is mesmerizing. “I’ll be good.”

Emma kisses her again and her hand is on Regina’s hand holding the dagger.

“I’ll be so so good, Regina.”

Regina lets her face rest in Emma’s neck. She closes her eyes. She breathes.

Emma is lost.

“Dark One, I command thee,” Regina whispers. “Step away from me.”

“No!” Emma steps away from Regina. “How dare you use it on me!” She hisses. “It’s mine!”

“You’re not yourself anymore.” Regina’s voice trembles but she says the words.

Anger and tears shake her.

“I am more myself than you know.”

The Dark One turns her back to Regina in a flurry of black and gold marching in the midnight blue smoke of her disappearance.


	9. Bolt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Having just stepped out of the Diner, Emma faces Regina and the others in the middle of the street. In her frustration, the corrupted Darkness reveals itself and she makes a play for the dagger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Editors | @giors1 and @Devje
> 
> You can find me on Twitter and Tumblr. @Paradoxalpoised
> 
>  
> 
> [Setting | Events in this story take place several months after Emma has become the Dark One at the end of S05. The story is told in scenes during the months that follow in Regina’s life.]

 

* * *

 

#### Scene 13

The Dark One reappears in the same step in the middle of the street outside the diner.

Glass shatters. The front windows of the diner fall. Car windows explode. Alarms sound.

Emma’s rage comes out of her in a guttural scream that tears into metal, shrinking cars into grotesque heaps and cracking the asphalt of the road.

The evening sky darkens with clouds. Wind picks up.

“Mom, stop!” Henry runs past Regina towards Emma.

Before Regina can stop him, David runs from the sidewalk and intercepts him. Regina joins them outside. Everyone in the diner follows.

“Henry!” Regina cries, reaching for Henry with both hands.

In one huge leap, Red appears in the middle of the street between Emma and all of them. Her roar is so powerful, everything freezes as if suspended in time and movement.

Shards of glass hover, water pools in a mid-air puddle above the red fire hydrant, a bolt of lightning unfolds in slow motion.

“You have been a pain in my ass long enough, mutt!” Emma exclaims, throwing her hands in claws of extended fingers.

At a speed contrasting with the moment, sparks crack from Emma’s fingers in Red’s direction. Regina only has time to scream “No!” before what she thinks for sure will be Red’s end when a shield of energy rises before the wolf and bounces away Emma’s attack.

“I think not, Dark One!” Zee smiles in defiance. “You will not hurt my family.”

Red hasn’t moved, she’s still in a fighting stance, growling. But Lily runs to her, wrapping her arms around the wolf’s neck to try to pull her aside. When that fails, she puts her shoulders and back against Red’s chest.

“Is this really necessary, Emma?” Lily calls. “Aren’t we family and friends?”

“You betrayed me!” Emma’s voice is booming, veins are popping from her neck and her temples. Her eyes are full of dark magic.

“We haven’t,” Lily keeps on. “We’re looking for a way to help you beat the Darkness. This is not you!”

“But it is me, friend. It is me. It answers to me. It does my will.”

“That’s a lie, Emma, you have to know it.” Lily’s voice cracks. “Remember who you are, who you always were. You’re my best friend. You brought me back from the darkness in me.”

“Yet in the end, you are against me. You and the others.” Emma locks eyes with Regina.

Regina wants to scream that she loves her. That Emma has betrayed them and not the other way around. That she’s given up on herself. She knows Emma didn’t stand a chance against the Darkness, that it is a miracle how long she withstanded it. Unfair.

So she stares into Emma’s darkened eyes, with all the love she bears her and all the strength she still has. Her silence. Her plea.

But Emma shakes her head as if to clear her mind of her own self. “Give me the dagger, Regina.”

“I can’t give it to you, mi cielo.” Regina’s voice is soft of tone.

“I need it.” Emma begs. “You have it right here, give it to me, I need it.”

Then time is transfixed. One single moment constricted with fear and anguish.

Henry frees himself from Regina, runs as fast as he can to his mother and collides with Emma as he bends and wraps his arms around hers and her middle. His eyes are tight shut. Regina can see the side of his face on Emma’s chest.

“Mom, Mom, please, stop it. I know you’re in there. I love you, Mom.”

“Henry,” Emma says. Her forearms and hands find purchase on his back. She grasps a fist of his sweater.

No one dares.

Seconds, maybe minutes, pass.

No one dares.

Regina has the dagger ready, she’s formulating how to best protect Henry’s life, and everybody else’s.

No one dares.

But the pirate.

Hook comes on the scene, in long strides. And maybe he means well. Maybe he means to protect Henry from the Dark One. Maybe he means to change the focus in case Emma has the idea of using Henry as leverage against the dagger. Against Regina.

The pirate, transfused with jealousy and pettiness, whose intentions are never noble or honorable but always a swindle. The pirate who grips a hold of Henry’s arm and forcibly pulls him away from his mother’s embrace.

“Swan—” Hook starts.

“Don’t you dare touch my son,” Emma says. With a twist of her wrist, Hook pirouettes half a turn on himself, facing them. There’s a loud crack of what can only be his spine. Life leaves his eyes and he falls. Dead.

Snow’s hands fly to her mouth. Maleficent groans. Red yelps. Henry is rubbing his arm, looking down at the heap of leather and Hook on the ground.

Before Emma can react, Regina joins her and disapparates them in the forest, by the cabin on the lake.

She’s past Emma and pacing in the snow, which she’s not equipped for, the dagger firmly against her chest, as Emma becomes aware of her surroundings. The lake is frozen. It’s snowing again.

“Do you even realize you’ve killed a man?” Regina can’t help but scream. “You’ve killed a man, does that register?”

“Hook doesn’t matter,” Emma grunts, crossing her arms on her chest. “He had it coming.”

“You’ve killed him, Emma! In front of Henry!”

“I apologize?” Emma tries.

“You have lost all grasp of moral! Of humanity!” Regina stops in her tracks and looks at Emma’s vacant expression.

“How did you know to take me here?” Emma asks her.

“I didn’t know anything, I just thought of somewhere far away from the diner.” Regina hesitates. “I’ve always liked it here.”

“I know.” Emma smiles her smug little smile at her. “That’s why I chose it to be my hideout. I concealed myself and the changes I’ve done to the place but, apparently, in your anger, all of that became moot.”

“You’ve been staying here?” Regina doesn’t want to let herself be deterred from their fight, from her anger with Emma.

“Yes, since the morning my parents came to your house and I—had to leave.” Emma steps closer to Regina. She extends a hand. “Come inside, it’s freezing.”

Regina refuses Emma’s hands but follows her to the cabin. It has been enlarged, and furnished in a modern, practical fashion. Emma starts a fire with a snap of her fingers and puts the kettle on the stove.

“I’ll make us coffee,” she says.

Regina is fuming, but for a while she watches Emma labor over the French press, preparing mugs and cream and sugar. She looks around, the patterns on the walls, the cushions and throws, the bed further in the room with the screens and wardrobe. The cabin isn’t goth looking or emanating that raw violence and despair of the Darkness. The place looks like Emma. Emma in her most vulnerable state. Greys, soft creams and blues, a touch of red here and there.

How ironic. Emma is in everything the Dark One does.

How much of Emma is in Hook, dead on the road in the middle of town?

She’s not going to drink the Dark One’s coffee and forget the sliver of life evaporating from the pirate’s expression. He certainly had it coming and she’s wished him dead many times. All the times really. But this, this is murder. She knows it well and she has no doubt she’ll find its taste on Emma’s lips if she kisses them. Or in her coffee.

Her anger is slow burning, keeping her warmer than any fire could. She breathes and schools her emotions. It’s not like her, but what else should she do? Have a fit? Explode in Emma’s face? She is no match for her magic. And what if this is the moment Red was talking about? The moment where she measures how far Emma’s love for her goes against her life.

Regina is scared. She shakes her head and takes a step toward the monster who took the woman she loves away from her and their child. To hell with fear, she’s not a coward.

The idea that she should drink this moment in, catalogue every single detail of the place and how the Dark One transpires through crosses her mind. She must make this moment count.

Every single moment with Emma counts. This is how they get her back.

Regina holds on to the dagger. She secures her grasp on the hilt in her left hand and walks over to the desk area of the lounge. There’s a bookshelf, a few volumes opened on the table. A notebook with some scribbles that Regina wishes she had a photographic memory to submit them to. She walks around to the chair, there’s also models for cuts, the drawing of a hat and felt on one side. She recognizes magic, she feels it coming from the books. There’s poetry thrown on a loose page, maybe an incantation. Or the beginning of one.

Emma is not versed in magic. All these years she’s barely touched her potential. She’s learnt some things, but her connection to her powers is strongly emotional and she has little technique. The huge force she possesses always a compensation for the little command she wields. Of course the Darkness would want her to dab into that power, to become better in the arts of magic.

“You’re prying.” Emma is standing by the doorway to the kitchen with two mugs in hand.

“Whereas you’re scheming,” Regina retorts.

Emma’s smile is heartless. It hurts.

Regina doesn’t move to take the cup Emma extends to her. “I don’t want your coffee.”

“If you’ve only stayed to lecture me about Hook, you’re wasting both our times.”

There’s nothing else she can say to bring Emma back. She might appear here and there, fragmented in emotions and time, but there’s nothing standing in the way of the Darkness that she will find here.

“Dark One, I command thee.” Speaking the words costs her, but not only does she need to save Emma, she needs to protect the people she loves. “Stay away from me, from Henry and the people I care about. Do not come to the house or the diner. You will not hurt or kill anyone else. And you shall stay in Storybrooke.”

“How dare you!” Emma gets right in her face. “You’re making me a prisoner!”

“Oh, I will free you.” Regina does not back down from the fury in Emma’s darkened eyes.

“Until then, Dark One, I command thee.”


	10. Children

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s Christmas and the gang is celebrating together at the mansion. While Regina and Maleficent are having a most important conversation, Zelena finally announces she’s made progress on their effort to save Emma and destroy the Dark One’s Curse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Editors | @giors1 and @Devje
> 
> You can find me on Twitter and Tumblr. @Paradoxalpoised
> 
>  
> 
> [Setting | Events in this story take place several months after Emma has become the Dark One at the end of S05. The story is told in scenes during the months that follow in Regina’s life.]

 

* * *

 

#### Scene 14

Snow has stopped falling on their Christmas morning. Presents have been opened, food has been shared. Their merry band has been together since the previous evening. The house is full of scents and conversations. There’s even mistletoe.

Red and Zee are in the kitchen. Red is recycling leftovers from their breakfast and dinner, making some grilled turkey sandwiches for her ferocious appetite and the pregnant woman of the house. Zee is perched on a high chair, magical books spread before her on the kitchen island.

The French doors are slightly open. Regina can smell onion and cheese. She can also hear the lively conversation between Zee and Red, gushing over food and magic. Zee is teasing Red about her wolf and being Regina’s pet. Red is wearing the cashmere jumper Regina got her for Christmas while Zee is sporting a beanie hat Henry picked especially for her.

They’re thick as thieves and it is good that way.

Lily and Henry are playing catch in the backyard. Regina worries that they should be bundled up in coats and beanies and gloves, but they’re both only wearing big fluffy hoodies and scarves and the new baseball mitts that Lily gave Henry for Christmas. They’ve been at it for almost an hour. He’s throwing as hard as he can. He’s angry. Emma.

Henry knew that Emma was never going to visit them for Christmas, for the same reason she didn’t come to him for his fifteenth birthday. Henry-niño was hoping she would anyway. But Emma is not his mother anymore. The Darkness in her heart is too great to overcome. Emma’s love for him has been defeated. He knows. He hurts.

Lily catches. She can take it. She’s been standing by him in her own way. Different from Emma, different from Red.

Red and Henry talk, they always have. She’s been around him since he was a baby. She’s always encouraged him, she’s always poked at him the right way, she’s always had him under her wing. Red and Henry share a deep affection and trust.

To Regina’s surprise, Henry-not-so-niño helped Lily fit in and become a part of their family. Henry has an insatiable curiosity for Lily and her life experience. Her life outside of Storybrooke. Her life in the real world, Henry says. Her influence has been doing wonders on his taking responsibility for himself and thinking on his privilege. What to do with himself. His place in the world. The person he wants to be.

They’re important to each other and it is good that way.

“Brrr,” Maleficent growls, “it’s way too cold for being outside. Scoot over.”

Regina is sitting outside of the den, on the stairs of her back porch, wrapped up in her big winter jacket with the fur lined hood that keeps her ears warm. She’s nursing a hot cup of coffee, trying not to brood about Emma herself. She finds that watching Lily and Henry together helps her focus on the other people she loves and cherishes.

“Don’t pretend.” Regina scoots over anyway. “We both know you were never cold.”

“My old bones disagree with you.” Maleficent sits flush to Regina’s side and links their arms. She’s also brought her coffee, an impression of the Grinch on her mug. Henry-niño chose it for her. There was one for each of their new family members. Christmas tradition.

Regina smiles to Maleficent as she settles down. “I forget how much older than me you are.”

“I hope you haven’t forgotten everything about us.” Maleficent smiles back, smug and playful. Memories.

Regina blushes but she looks at Maleficent, defiant. “That’s rather unforgettable, dear.”

“Good.” Maleficent presses deeper into Regina’s side then looks over to Lily and Henry pointing at them with her chin. “These two get along.”

“They do,” Regina agrees. “It makes me happy for my son that he is surrounded by such different yet amazing women.”

“It makes me happy for Lily that she’s finding her place, here with us,” Maleficent says. “I’m overjoyed that she decided to stay in Storybrooke, even if it is only because she wants to make things right with Emma.”

“I think she stayed because you are her mother and she wants to be close to you,” Regina disagrees. “She loves you, Maleficent.”

It’s Maleficent’s turn to blush. “I am grateful she chose to forgive me. For someone made to be dark and evil, she’s the light of my life.”

“She’s beautiful,” Regina tells Maleficent, looking at her with a warmth a long time forgotten between them.

Maleficent closes her eyes, takes a deep breath then opens her eyes again and smiles to Regina, reminiscent of their shared tenderness. “She’s yours, Regina.”

“Mine?” Regina asks, confused.

“Look at her,” Maleficent whispers in Regina’s ear. “Just look at her.”

Regina looks. She frowns and squints. Lily as she smiles to Henry. Lily’s skin. The mix of white and brown that she knows is like hers—from the Southern Kingdom. Lily’s hair. Dark and curly, untamed. Lily’s eyes. A rich brown accentuated by arched eyebrows, expressive. Lily’s mouth. Full lips with a small upturn at the corner, trouble. Lily’s nose. Straight and decisive, set between high cheekbones. Just like—

Just like hers. Lily looks just like her.

Lily is hers.

Regina grips Maleficent’s knee. “How?” She turns to her side to look at Maleficent. “I’m human. I’m a woman.”

“Magic? Love?” Maleficent doesn’t back down. “We were together on and off for years, Regina. I’ve always loved you. Our love grew and evolved, but I never stopped loving you.”

“Mal.” Regina is stunned.

“You came to me after their wedding,” Maleficent explains. “I realized I was pregnant a few weeks after Snow White announced her own pregnancy.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Regina knows why. She could cry with frustration. She has another child.

“You were obsessed with the curse,” Maleficent answers, sadness in her voice. “You were impossible to reason with. You were on a rampage and an all-out war with the Land. The woman I loved was lost to me. I didn’t want our child to get caught in the crossfire. I didn’t want Lily to be collateral damage.”

Regina breathes in her tears. The blow. The impact of her madness. The loss of a woman she loved passionately. The loss of her child. Her child.

“Have you told her?” Regina wants to. She wants to right this instant.

“No.” Maleficent cups Regina’s cheek. Regina leans into it. “I’ve been selfish. Keeping her to myself. You have Henry. You have Emma.”

Regina puts her hand on Maleficent’s hand on her cheek. “We have a daughter, Mal.” Her tears fall. “We have a daughter.” Their coffee is forgotten. Regina wraps her arms around Mal’s neck, she cries on her shoulder. “I’m so sorry I left you alone while you were pregnant. I’m so sorry I let Snow and Charming destroy her future.”

She has a daughter and, oh, is it good that way.

“Mom?” Henry and Lily have walked closer to Regina and Maleficent. “Mom, are you okay?” Both Lily and Henry look worried.

Regina smiles through her tears and wipes her face. She stands and pulls Henry and Lily into a hug. “I’m fine, mijo. I’m fine.”

“Mamá, you’re crying,” Henry insists.

“I know, baby, but really it’s okay.” Regina lets go of them. Her children. She smiles to Lily who’s staring at her questioningly. “I just need a moment.”

Lily mouths, “What’s going on?”

Before she can answer Regina is interrupted by Zelena who exclaims loudly from the kitchen, “That’s it! I found it!”

Attention turns to Zee and they all hurry to the kitchen. Lily closes the French doors behind them.

“I’ve found it!” Zee exclaims again, clapping her hands with excitement.

“Whacht?” Red asks with her mouth full of turkey sandwich.

“I found an incantation to get the Darkness out of Emma’s heart without killing her.”

“How?” Regina asks, to the point.

“Well, I found a story in this book.” Zee lifts up the book. “It’s ancient and from Merlin’s library.”

Maleficent rolls her eyes. “What does it say?!”

“I read a book a few months back that seemed to be a diary of some sort. It recounted the life stories of several Dark Ones over a few centuries,” Zelena explains. “It read quite chaotically because it was written by different people and sometimes in different languages. Also, it didn’t have a title.”

“And this one?” Lily points to the book in Zelena’s hands.

“This one is just as difficult to read, and it was hard to find in the midst of everything Merlin owns. I recognized a symbol I saw in the the first book I read. I think that, for as long as there’s been a Dark One’s curse, there has been a succession of watchers. Mostly voyeurs and historians, but sometimes actors or disciples or servants of the Dark One.”

“That’s great Zee,” Red huffs, “but what does it say?”

“Patience, Little Wolf.” Maleficent puts a hand on Red’s shoulder. “Let Zelena tell her tale.”

“Thank you.” Zee nods in Mal’s direction. “As I was saying, the first book I read was old and covered centuries of the Dark One’s story. The Darkness seems to prolong their life almost indefinitely but it also brings them immutably to the same violent end. This book,” Zelena continues as she looks to Lily, “is even older. It dates back to when the Land was in a darker age than I witnessed last I was there. It predates your first Ogre War by centuries. Understandably, the language is not current or even old English. It’s something else entirely and I’ve been working on a translation tool with Belle.”

“So you’ve learned a new language in order to be able to read this book?” Regina asks flabbergasted. ‘ _I don’t know how to thank you.’ Regina impresses on her mental_ bond with her sister.

‘ _I love you too, Sis._ ’ Zee beams at Regina a smile so radiant and sincere, Regina’s tears return to her. She presses her hands to her mouth and face. Zelena pushes herself up from her chair, books forgotten, and pulls her sister into a strong hug. “I’ve found it, Regina. We’re going to figure it out now. We are, I know it!”

Regina chokes on a sob and a laugh, swallowing hard and smiling back to her sister. “Yes, okay.”

“Aunt Zee, you’re the best!” Henry joins in their glee and soon their embrace turns into a group hug. A group hug. It’s Regina’s first.

“I still want to know what it says!” Red exclaims and laughs.

“All right, all right!” Zee extricates herself from all the arms wrapped around her. “To be exact, what I found is the recounts of the life of a Dark One from the Winterlands called Fróði—”

“Frodo?” Henry repeats after her.

“No, Fróði, which you pronounce Frode—Belle helped me with that, since that’s where she’s from. This book is written in quite old Nordish from the Winterlands. We had to be creative with our translation of their alphabet and then words of course, but it worked well enough that I can read this with my translation guide, see?” She shows them a few sheets of paper inserted between the pages of the book on the kitchen island. “Anyway, Fróði was a Dark One during these dark ages and he managed to transfer—or give away, it’s a tad obscure—the Dark One’s curse and powers to another man without being stabbed to death in the process.”

“That’s brilliant.” Lily claps her hands. “Okay, I want to hear everything. How did he do that?”

“Why don’t we all go to the study and let Zee read it to us?” Maleficent offers. “You’ll be more comfortable.”

“Good idea.” Red takes the plate full of turkey sandwiches and another almost overflowing with cookies and makes her way around the kitchen island. “Henry, grab the coffee pot.”

He follows Red and so does Lily, helping Zee with her books.

“We’ll be right behind you,” Maleficent tells them. “And Zee?”

“Yes?” Zee pauses ahead of Lily.

“Whatever you read out loud, under no circumstances speak the incantation.”

Zee rolls her eyes and turns around before adding with a wave of her hand, “Of course not, what kind of witch do you think I am?”

Regina walks them out of the kitchen and stops by the door frame, looking back to Maleficent. “You wanted a word?”

Maleficent smiles and looks up. She extends a hand.

Mistletoe.

Regina steps into Mal’s embrace. She looks into her eyes with all the strength of their once burning love. She wraps her arms around Mal’s neck as she feels Mal hold her tightly around her waist. Their foreheads touch. The fire under Maleficent’s skin dances in Regina’s veins. The purple shade of her magic blurs her vision to everything else but the flames of blood red in Maleficent’s eyes. The desire she’d once felt rises her chest and labors her breath.

Regina’s lips brush against Mal’s. She pulls at her bottom lip with her teeth. She arches her back and abandons herself to Maleficent’s unequaled force and unwavering grasp of the world. To the dragon. To the being that had once steadied her world and kept her sane in the whirlwind of their maddening passion. Beyond humanity. Beyond death. Beyond reason.

Regina kisses Maleficent. Tongue, lips, teeth, moans, wetness. Her eyes close as she grasps a fist of Mal’s hair. She moans when Maleficent throat rumbles with the familiar growl of her dragon. Maleficent kisses Regina’s throat, her neck. She takes the lobe of her ear in her mouth. Regina bucks into Maleficent’s hips.

“This is how we made her,” Mal whispers in Regina’s ear, her fingers pressing on Regina’s lower back in a purchase Regina never realised only ever belonged to Maleficent.

Regina kisses Maleficent again. Slow. Soft. Warm.

“You were never cold.” She sighs and rests her face in Mal’s neck.

They haven’t moved from under the mistletoe. They haven’t followed the others. In this moment, Regina doesn’t care.

She has a daughter.

“When you tell her who you are, tell her she was born of love.”

“I promise.” Regina looks at Maleficent’s eyes, full of a passion of old. Full of eternal power.

Maleficent kisses Regina’s forehead. “Let’s go find out how we bring your Emma back to you.”

Maleficent takes Regina’s hand, intertwining their fingers. They walk together to Regina’s study. To the others.

Maleficent doesn’t let go of Regina’s hand and it is good that way.


	11. Lily and the Beast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Regina has a heart to heart with Lily as Zelena goes in labor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Setting | Events in this story take place several months after Emma has become the Dark One at the end of S05. The story is told in scenes during the months that follow in Regina’s life.]
> 
> Editors | @giors1 and @Devje
> 
> You can find me on Twitter and Tumblr. @Paradoxalpoised
> 
> This chapter is dedicated to @Devje.
> 
> Happy birthday to me.
> 
> C.

 

* * *

 

#### Scene 15

Regina is pacing. She’s requested to be left alone in her study. Her head is full and her nerves are frayed. She has a daughter. They have an incantation to get the Darkness out of Emma. Zee is in labour.

She should be upstairs holding her sister’s hand. Maleficent is doing that for her. Marika is with them. Zelena is safe and the baby is long ways away. Maleficent is using magic to help Zee with the pain. They’re pacing, too. Regina can feel everything Zee is feeling through their bond. They have never been closer.

 _‘Would you stop it with the guilt trip and talk to Lily already!’_ Zee snaps at her.

Of course Zelena would know, even though Regina didn’t mention Lily’s parentage to her or anyone else.

 _‘Fine.’_ Regina doesn’t even try to argue with her sister. She rolls her eyes and takes a few determined strides to the door.

Red, Lily, Granny and Henry are in the living room. They were supposed to celebrate New Year’s Eve together, feast on the buffet and have a glass of bubbly around midnight.

Then Zelena’s waters broke.

Regina grabs the handle and opens the door with a vigor contrasting with the shakiness of her resolve, only to come face to face with Lily, her hand up to knock.

“Hey,” Lily says, “can we talk?”

“I was just coming to find you myself.” Regina steps aside so Lily can come into her study. She closes the door behind them and joins Lily in the center of the room.

“You should start,” Lily says.

“I can wait until after your news.” Nervous.

She thinks about inviting Lily to sit down. She thinks about offering her some coffee. She thinks about the lives she’s destroyed.

“No, really,” Lily says, “I think you should tell me first. Once I get started you’re going to lose your shot.”

“I—pardon me?” Regina’s curiosity is piqued.

“Please, just—” Lily sits down at one end of the couch and gestures for Regina to sit next to her. “I think I want to hear what you’ve been stewing about.”

“Stewing?” She really has been.

“Yeah.” Lily smiles just a touch and the corner of her mouth lifts exactly like Regina’s would. “Maleficent has been all screwed up about something since Christmas and you’ve been avoiding me like I’m radioactive. You guys are making me nervous.”

“Oh, querida, I’m so sorry. That wasn’t my intention at all.” Regina lets out a huff of breath. What she needs is to find her courage, not to grow more cross with herself. “You’re right, there’s been something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about. I wanted to tell you right away when your mother shared the truth with me, but I got cold feet and it’s taken me a few days to gather myself.”

“Cold feet about what, Regina?” Lily’s face is as open as Regina has seen her. Wonder.

Regina takes a deep breath. She tries to steady herself so that her speech does not burst out of her as she fears her heart might.

“I’m sure by now you’ve read the story which lead us all here to Storybrooke, and you know what I did and who I was back in the Land.”

“The Evil Queen, yes, I know,” Lily says. “But you’re not anymore.”

“No, I’m not anymore, but I was back then.” Regina holds her hands together so tight her knuckles hurt. “I was at the time of your birth, and I was the force that pushed Snow White and Charming to kidnap you and plant the seed of Emma’s darkness inside of you, leaving you abandoned and destined for pain here on Earth.”

“That’s on them, Regina. You didn’t make the choice for them. You didn’t take me away from Maleficent and you didn’t make a deal with the Apprentice to ruin me and my life and send me here.” Lily scoots closer to Regina and puts a hand on hers.

“No, I didn’t. But,” Regina says, looking down at their hands together, “I was the Evil Queen at the moment of your conception.”

“My conception?”

When Regina has the strength to look into Lily’s eyes, she sees confusion.

“Lily, I am your mother.” She says it and oh-so-gently takes Lily’s resting hand in hers. Her silent plea for forgiveness and acceptance.

“Maleficent is my mother.”

“Yes, she is, and she also was my lover. For years. She was the only person I loved. The only person I could love. She was the only person I still loved while the madness of my vengeance and my sufferings scorched the land with fire and flooded it with blood.

“She was the only one who understood me. The only one who could still reach me through the turmoil of my emotions, the violence of my magic and my bloodthirst. The only one who stood by me through it all and never feared me. No matter how many times I left, how many times I lied, how many times I took from her.

“Your mother was never a villain. Mischievous and passionate. Never reasonable.” Regina chuckles.

Tears fall on her cheeks. She can’t stop now. It all needs to come out.

“When I first met her, I was so young, so ignorant, but I had the boldness and the arrogance to think I could wake the dragon. She was lonely and bored. She was tired of our world. Somehow, I rekindled the fire in her heart and she lit my world on fire with a power I never stopped adoring. Even to this day she will make me shudder with anticipation.”

“I don’t understand,” Lily says.

“I think you do,” Regina say, a smile on her lips and salt on her tongue. “You were born from our love. I don’t know how, tormented as we always were, or why then, in the middle of my chaos. But our magic combined, our love making, our passion—the more I think about it, the more I know it to be true.

“You are our daughter. And you are so,” Regina chokes on a sob, “so beautiful, so perfect, I can’t breathe.”

Regina sees her tears fall on their joined hands. Then through the blur of those tears she sees Lily’s hands leaving hers and tightening into fists on her own thighs. Regina wipes her tears with her fingers. She stands to retrieve the tissue box from her desk then sits back.

Lily’s anger is rolling off her in boiling waves of a familiar magic. It doesn’t bounce off Regina but penetrates her every pore. She can feel the heat of Lily’s rebellion towards the injustice surrounding her birth. Regina can see a short succession of incoherent images in Lily’s mind. She can sense Lily’s agonizing feeling of knowing her entire life the difference of her own essence but never being able to reconcile it with who she truly is.

Regina can see the dreams, smell the scents, feel the conflict. The dragon. The girl. Torn apart in a permanent state of wanting her own skin to rip so her beast may soar but never free in the corrupted shell of her body.

Regina recognizes the combined force of Maleficent’s and her own magic, a storm of untamed and raw power. A dragon. A woman. A child.

She recognizes the darkness in Lily’s heart. A darkness that twists her emotions. Regina can hear the voice in Lily’s mind. The sinuous, crooked, white-burning cold, always eating, gnawing, seeding. A darkness that doesn’t belong. That no matter how much it tries cannot ever truly grasp Lily’s soul.

A darkness not unlike her own.

Yet, there’s a yearning so intense, so deep for the truth of who she is and where she comes from. As if it could solve her. Give her the meaning and the purpose her heart so desires but that she seems unable to achieve by her own actions.

Regina knows that insecurity, that vulnerability. She’s seen it in the eyes of her son. She’s seen it in her sister. In Emma. Strays.

Instant forgiveness does not exist in this life or any other. Easy has never been for her. If Regina is to be forgiven and loved by her daughter, she must earn it.

Fair enough.

“You left her.”

“Yes,” Regina says. “I left you both.”

“You left her when she was at her weakest.”

“I did.”

“They took me.” Lily’s head is cast down. She’s not crying. “They gave me off to some magician and they took all the good there was in me and replaced it with all the wrong that could ever exist in Emma.”

Lily looks up at Regina. Her eyes are gleaming with a deep amber glow. Her pupils have reduced to slits. “They threw me into this world because I was too evil to stay with my mother.”

Steam and a very thin smoke is rising up from Lily’s shoulders. “You let them destroy my life and take me away from Maleficent because you were too selfish to let go of your vengeance and protect your family instead. To protect the woman you loved. A woman who loves you to this day, despite everything you’ve done.”

The growl in Lily’s voice echoes the rumble in her chest. “You abandoned her.”

With her last words, Lily shows her teeth. Her nostrils are flaring. “You abandoned me.”

The blow is deserved.

Regina waits a moment to make sure Lily has cast all the accusations she needs to throw at her, to make sure Lily can control herself and not burst into her dragon.

She stares at Lily with all the sincerity, the hope and the love she can muster for this woman who has become everything. This woman who has taken root in the depth of her heart. Her daughter.

“I did.” She did. She hates it. She hates herself. And, oh, does she hate Snow White with a renewed fervor. “I failed you. I failed your mother.”

“You—”

Regina grasps Lily’s wrist and pulls her into her embrace. She interrupts Lily’s spew of rage but also her transformation.

Lily fights her at first. She tries to push Regina away. She tries to pull free. She grunts. She moans.

Regina holds her daughter steady. So small, yet so grand. So ashamed, yet so proud. So desperate, yet so hopeful.

“I failed you.” She presses her cheek to Lily’s. She cradles the back of her head. She presses her arm around Lily so as to never let her go. “But you haven’t.”

Her very soul hurts. The yearning to claim the woman in her arms is so strong, it strangles her throat and drowns her lungs. Her entire world is on the brink of shattering.

“You have to see that, despite what Snow White tried to force magic to do to you, she failed, too. You were never evil.” Regina holds Lily with all her might. She pushes magic into her embrace so she can contain Lily just a while longer. “I can feel the good in you, the greatness of your heart. Right here, right now. They might have magnified your potential for darkness, but they never took the good out of you.”

Lily is breathing deeply. She’s stopped fighting Regina’s hold. She can’t. She’s fighting against tipping over the edge of her beast. Her chest is heaving against Regina’s breast. The sound of her sobs and her rage are guttural and raw in Regina’s neck. “I don’t understand.”

“You are so, so strong. Consider this,” Regina says, in between pressing her lips to the skin of Lily’s jaw. “You have been fighting to save Emma from the Dark One’s Curse. You have been supportive and caring with Henry, with me. You’ve stayed and bonded with your mother. You’ve made friends that you protect and help. You saved Red’s life. Your choices are not evil. Your love is fierce. It’s warm and good. Like you.”

Regina listens to Lily’s heart. How it beats. How it runs. How immortal it is.

“You are powerful. You have free will. You can choose who you want to be.” Regina closes her eyes and inhales Lily’s scent. The scent of her skin. The scent of her magic. The scent of her dragon. “You already have.”

“Let me go.” Lily pulls away.

Regina doesn’t stop her. The idea that she might never hold her daughter again leaves Regina defeated. An embrace Lily didn’t return. An embrace she tolerated to preserve herself.

Grey, old and cold. Regina’s heart breaks anew. Henry is traumatized and abandoned again. Lily is hurt and angry. Emma is gone from her.

Never so small, never so broken, Regina retreats to the other end of the couch. She wants to find more words. Better words. To explain, to persuade, to sway. She knows she must let go, let Lily process and decide what she wants. Defenseless.

“How could you?” Lily points her finger. “How could you be so blind? How could you leave her like this?”

Regina’s answer can only disappoint.

“If you’d really loved her, you would have come and seen her before she gave birth. You would have felt it. You would have felt me.”

She should have. She broke Maleficent’s heart. She didn’t protect her child. And now she has broken Lily’s heart.

Regina wants to defend herself. She wants to explain that she has been redeemed. That she has learned to be a better woman, a mother, a lover, and even a friend.

She also wants to listen to Lily. To let her express what has been unspoken.

There is no excuse. Regina deserves all the blame. She has to be responsible for what she did, even if her past always comes back to break her.

What matters is Lily.

She won’t ask. She would beg, but she can’t ask.

“I—” Lily interrupts herself. Lily stands.

Regina looks up to her. She takes the time to commit Lily’s edges to memory. Her temper. Her energy.

When she finds Lily’s gaze, she looks at her intensely. She sits up. She’s ready.

“I can’t look at you.”

The pain is excruciating. She savours it.

Lily turns around and leaves.

The irony is not lost on Regina, that Emma has sacrificed herself to preserve Regina from the Darkness when she has been the monster all along.

Her darkness lives.

She is the beast.

_‘You are my sister.’ Zelena’s scream is so loud, Regina knows the whole house heard it._

She runs out to the parlor and almost careens into Lily who is turned toward the staircase. Regina pauses just the flash of a second, long enough to touch Lily’s arm in a silent apology. She climbs the stairs as fast as she can until she remembers she doesn’t have to and disapparates into Zelena’s room at once.

Lily is right behind her.

Regina takes in the scene. Marika is on the left side of the room. She’s wearing gloves and has a stethoscope in one hand. There’s a basin of water and a pile of towels on top of a dresser. There are instruments laid out on the nightstand. On the floor Marika’s satchel is open.

On the other side of the bed, Maleficent is bent over Zelena with an arm around her back and another supporting her. Zee is holding her belly and grasping Maleficent’s hand and forearm. She’s kneeled on the carpet and she’s hunched over in agony.

“Altezza.” Marika calls Regina attention to her. “We need her to lie on the bed.”

Regina walks to her sister’s side, exchanging a meaningful look with Mal.

“I’m here, Zee.” Regina helps Zee up.

“The baby is coming,” Zee cries out.

Regina and Mal walk Zee to her bed, resting down against several large pillows. Regina lifts Zee’s gown high on her hips while Marika climbs onto the bed between her legs.

Regina looks up from Marika. Lily is standing by the door. Red keeps Henry from entering the room and closes the door behind them. Lily refuses to look at her and she will only look at Maleficent.

“Regina!” Zee screams.

“I know.” Regina closes her eyes and focuses everything she feels in one strong draw of her magic. The world turns purple in the back of her eyelids and when she opens her eyes she only sees her sister. “I’ve got you. I’ll keep you safe. You just need to push.”

The wave of comfort and relief Regina sends to Zelena relaxes her and helps her with the pain of her last contractions and pushing the baby out.

“I can’t,” Zee says, breathing in sync with Regina.

“Yes, you can.” It’s only Regina and Zee now. Only them and the heartbeat of the small ball of light in between them.

Zee pushes hard as Marika coaxes the effort out of her at a rhythm.

“I can see the head now, and the shoulders are almost passed,” Marika says. “Push!”

“I can’t do this.” Zee pants hard under the strain of another push. “I’m a terrible person.”

Zee screams more before Regina can answer. “You are not alone. We’re going to welcome your little girl into the world and she will be loved. By you, and by her family.”

“How do you know it’s a girl?” Lily says.

The sound of her voice is an unexpected interruption. The room goes quiet.

Regina gives Lily her most earnest look. Then she squeezes her sister’s hand and rubs her back as she looks back to her eyes full of the tears of fear and joy only motherhood can bring. “Because I love you. You are my sister and our bond is strong.”

Regina turns so she can tell Lily the truth of her heart. “This time, I’ve listened.”

“Regina,” Zee cries with her last push.

With the exertion of giving birth, Zelena lets go and falls back against the pillow as her baby girl is born with the smallest cry.

“Aww, Zee, she’s here!” Regina kisses Zelena’s brow before letting go of her hand so she can help her settle back safely to hold her baby.

“Altezza,” Marika says, “the cord.”

“You cut it, Regina,” Zelena says.

Regina smiles and wipes the silly tears assailing her and her fragile emotions, tried and tired from a day of great emotion. She looks at her old friend, forever loyal. As Marika holds the small bundle of towel and baby between Zee’s legs, as she passes Regina a pair of surgical scissors, Regina looks at the lines of her trusted hands.

Regina cuts the cord and, before she knows it, Marika puts the little one in her arms.

“¡Mirala! La niña más preciosa,” Regina says as she leans in and sits next to her sister.

Regina places her niece against its mother’s breast as gently as she can. The baby only has a little hiccup of contentment.

“She’s not crying,” Zee says. “Is that normal? Is she okay?”

“She’s all ugly and wrinkled but she’s perfect.” Mal sits back against the pillows with Zee, by whose side she’s been all along.

“Are you sure?” Zee asks. So shy, even Lily comes closer and looks in on the baby.

“She’s amazing, Zee,” Lily says. She sits on the edge of the bed, her back to Regina, her thigh against Maleficent. “What are you going to call her?”

“Zoraida,” Zee says, putting a hand on Lily’s forearm. “So she’s a force of nature and magic just like you.”

“Like me?”

Lily’s surprise has Regina smile with gratitude. _‘Thank you, Zee.’_

“It’s a beautiful name,” Maleficent says.

Maleficent looks at Regina. Regina knows that look. It means I love you. It means be patient. It means all will be well. Regina nods and wipes another flow of tears. She doesn’t dare to hope, but her heart does anyway.

“Altezza,” Marika says. Her tone is soft but, to Regina, hearing the word is second nature.

“Yes?”

“The placenta needs delivered. The contractions will return shortly,” Marika says.

“You take Zora,” Zee says to Lily.

“Me?” Lily almost sounds panicked. “I’ve never held a baby before.”

“Just cradle her in the bend of your elbow against your heart and you’ll be fine.”

Zelena kisses her baby and gently deposits her against Lily’s chest. Just as she does, a contraction seizes her and she grunts with pain. Regina takes Zee’s hand in hers again and focuses her magic to relieve her of her pain.

Soon, Marika is packing waste, towels and gauzes and medical equipment. Zora has been cleaned, dressed and her little belly button cared for, and is fast asleep in her hammock by Zelena’s bed. Zelena has also been cleaned and changed.

“Altezza,” Marika calls.

Once more, Regina answers the call that is solely hers. “Yes?”

“I will take these to the hospital,” she says, lifting the sealed red bags reserved for human waste. She has her satchel in her other hand. “Su hermana must rest. And the baby.”

“We’ll leave them to rest, as long as they’re safe.”

“They are. When I get back, we’ll make sure the baby knows how to nurse and Zelena is comfortable with a few important things she needs to know how to do,” Marika says. “Until then, I don’t want anyone in here.”

“I understand,” Regina says.

Zelena has drifted to sleep when Regina bends over to give her a parting kiss. The little one hasn’t fussed and looks blissful.

Lily and Maleficent precede Regina and Marika down the stairs.

“I’ll go update everyone,” Maleficent says and walks away.

Regina grabs her coat on the rack above the bench by the door. She steps in her snow boots and walks Marika to her car.

“Con todo mi corazón, gracias por tu preciosa ayuda,” Regina thanks Marika. “Everything went incredibly well because of you.”

Marika’s car is running. “I’m a healer, that’s what I do.”

“I like to think that you have stayed by my side because you are my loyal friend. Not just because you’ve sworn an oath.” But she has, an oath both to healing and to her Queen.

Marika smiles. “I like to think that my actions have always told you what you needed to know.”

“They have.” Regina squeezes Marika’s hand. “Be safe driving.”

“Altezza.” Marika inclines her head.

Regina stands on her front porch for a moment, even after Marika’s car has disappeared beyond the grey horizon. The cold helps her clear her mind and fog it up with more doubt and insecurity.

She can add aunt to her mantle. Altezza. Her majesty was lost a long time ago.

She must face her failures.

Her light has faded, shone on so many of her crimes and her life-breaking transgressions. She remembers her arrogance, proclaiming she didn’t regret anything. It all led her to Henry.

How bitter her regret is now. How tired her heart. How alive her desire for vengeance.

It’s almost as if she’s been stuck in a vicious cycle of her own making.

Regina has one curt bite of a laugh. It sounds petty in the silence of the falling snow.

She keeps breaking curses only to feed her own.

It’s cold.

Inside, she has to be responsible and strong. Inside, she has to be Regina. Outside, she can indulge in self-pity. She can fantasize about what she wants to do to Snow White. She can be Her.

Sweet corruption. Escapism.

Regina comes in.

She chooses her study instead of the living room or the kitchen. There is no comfort she wants to reward herself with.

In her study, she can hide. She can find the will to be as great as the people she loves expect her to be. As great as Emma needs her to be.

Lily is standing by the window. On the other side of where Regina was standing on the porch a moment ago. She was being watched and she didn’t feel it.

Lily doesn’t turn around. Regina busies herself with feeding a couple of logs to the fire.

“This doesn’t mean that I forgive you,” Lily says.

Regina swallows. She doesn’t have words for this. Only begging.

“I think I know how we can get Emma back.” Lily turns around and looks at Regina, stranded in the middle of her study.

“I—” Regina is thunderstruck.

Lily raises her hand to shut her down. “That’s what I wanted to tell you. Before.” She walks around Regina’s desk and perches on the edge of it. “I don’t know how to destroy the Dark One’s Curse, but I know how to keep it away from Emma. Or any of us.”

Regina puts a hand to her mouth. She bites her lip hard enough to feel blood seep through her teeth.

“We need a heart,” Lily says. “We need a heart which has the greatest potential for power and darkness.”

She picks up the letter opener on Regina’s desk and twirls it around in her hands.

“Don’t think I haven’t thought of it,” Regina says. “Even if I’m close enough with the dagger and I call the Darkness to me, we can’t take the chance of turning me into the Dark One while I have the dagger in my hand.”

“Shut up. This is not about you.”

It stings. Specifically when Regina understands that Lily doesn’t mean to sacrifice her to the Darkness in order to free Emma.

“We need a heart. Can you make one?”

She can. She doesn’t answer because she needs to visualize the idea, but she can. It’s brilliant. How stupid she has been. She should have thought of it long before. She fractured Snow and Charming’s hearts to make one, to use what was left to sacrifice it to the new Dark Curse that brought them all back to Storybrooke.

Of course she can make a heart! It will work. The how needs refined, but it will work.

“We need a heart, powerful enough to attract the Darkness when we use the incantation to get it out of Emma. So can you, like, take pieces of all of our hearts to make a super heart and then use that?”

“Yes.” Regina’s hand returns to her mouth, hiding her smile. She nods. “Yes, I can do it.”

Lily shrugs. “Then do it.”

Regina takes a step toward her daughter. “I don’t know how to thank you. I didn’t think you would speak to me again.”

“Get over yourself. I’m not going to leave Emma in her shit because you keep fucking up.”

Regina stops dead in her tracks. “No, of course.”

“How do we do this?”

“I need to take your heart out of your chest, and then I need to sever a piece from it.”

“How many pieces do you need?”

“If we want it to be the most powerful heart, powerful enough to attract the Darkness, then I’ll need a piece of yours, your mother’s, Red’s, Zelena’s and mine.” Regina places a hand on her heart.

They’re not lacking in power.

“And then? Do you need help to make it?”

“No,” Regina says. “I’ve done it once before. I will need my focus, and calm, but I can do it alone.”

“Fine.” Lily walks past Regina to the door.

“It will hurt,” Regina calls to Lily before she leaves. For her to stay a moment more, even just a disgusted one. “Separating a piece of your heart, it will hurt.”

“Do I look like I care?”

No.

The door slams shut. The fire dies.

It already does hurt.


	12. Hearts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It is time for Regina to make a heart and to finally have the means to save Emma from the Darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Editors | @Devje
> 
> You can find me on Twitter and Tumblr. @Paradoxalpoised  
>  
> 
> [Setting | Events in this story take place several months after Emma has become the Dark One at the end of S05. The story is told in scenes during the months that follow in Regina’s life.]

* * *

#### Scene 16

Regina likes to watch Zora sleep. She smiles in her sleep, even though she’s too young for her smile to be a smile. It brings Regina a quiet, small sliver of hope for her own soul.

They have a plan.

“Regina.” Maleficent appears behind her. The red of her magic surrounds them. “Lily is here. We can start.”

“Very well.”

Maleficent rests her hand on the nape of Regina’s neck. “Let me—”

“No, as long as she hurts, I hurt.” There will be no reprieve. Not for her.

“Ever the stubborn, petulant child. Your daughter is as hard headed as you are.”

“She’s a dragon, dear.”

“Yes, and just like her mother, she needs comfort.” Maleficent kisses the skin at the tip of Regina’s shoulder.

Regina’s heart melts as everything inside of her rebels. She turns to face Maleficent.

“Mal, I can’t.” Regina looks away to fight her tears. “I—please?”

Maleficent wipes Regina’s tears with her thumb and cups her cheek. “I know.” She kisses Regina’s forehead. “Let me take you.”

Regina closes her eyes, as if she could contain her emotions behind their lids. Maleficent wraps her arms around Regina. When Regina opens her eyes, they are in her study.

The first person she seeks is the furthest away from her: Lily, by the window.

“Mom, it’s not fair.” Henry, standing between her and Lily, is agitated. “I want to give you a piece of my heart, too. I’m strong enough.”

“It has nothing to do with your strength, mijo.” Regina is not about to let her boy surrender a single inch of his beautiful, true and perfect heart. She would do without Lily’s, if she could. “You have the heart of the truest believer. Your heart is too pure.”

Even if it’s not, no one in this room will make her.

“How do you know?”

“Hen, come on, let it go.” Red tries to help. Grateful for the effort, Regina looks at her but gives her a sigh instead of a smile.

Red has the habit of indulging her.

“You will not give a piece of your heart for this, and neither will you be with us when we free Emma from the Darkness.” Regina will not budge. She will not take the chance of Henry getting hurt. Or worse.

“Why? I can help! I’ve helped so far.”

“Yes, you have.” Regina takes his hands in hers. At some point in all this mess, he’s grown taller than her. “And you have done enough. The last part of this entire operation is not up to you.”

“It’s Operation Dark Swan! I named the fucking thing myself!” At some point in all this mess, he’s also become a full-on teenager who thinks he can swear to his mother’s face.

“Henry Daniel Mills!” Regina can’t hold it in. She will not tolerate such behavior from the one child she actually raised. Better than this. “No me hables de esta manera. Soy tu madre ¡recuerda!”

“I’m not your baby anymore!”

“Then stop behaving like one!” Regina’s anger lights a fire in the pit of her stomach. “I can’t lose you too, Henry. It’s as simple as that.”

“You can’t lose me too, but you don’t care if Lily is there.” Of course, he would know.

And that’s one step too far.

“¡Cállate, Henry!” Lily takes Henry by the shoulder and walks him out of the room.

She might have spared him the first slap of his life.

“Regina?” Red has stepped close to her and she’s waving her hand in front of Regina’s face.

“What?”

“Don’t blow me up.” Red winces and puts her hands up. “You spaced out.”

Regina clears her throat. “Yes, well, I’m not anymore.”

“Shall we do this?” Maleficent asks.

“Yes, I apologize.”

“How exactly are we doing this?” Zelena says. “I’m not against giving a piece of my heart away, but then what?”

“I’ve never made a heart,” Maleficent says. “Are you sure you can?”

Regina’s anger isn’t quieting down. She has no patience for this.

“Yes, I’m sure. I’ve done it before. I’ve actually made a heart.”

“How?” Red asks.

“It’s not a thing I can explain, Red, but your precious Snow White and her Prince Charming share a heart that I made for them as they sacrificed the other part to cast the new Dark Curse which brought us all back to Storybrooke.”

“Wait, you weren’t the one to cast the new curse?”

“No, I wasn’t,” Regina says. “The heroes were the villains in that particular part of the fairytale.”

Red quiets down and it’s just as well.

“You had a chance to let Snow White die and you didn’t?” Maleficent sounds as offended as she is relieved.

“Believe me, I regret it.”

“We should focus on saving Emma and making hearts,” Zelena says.

Regina takes a deep breath and closes her eyes, looking for the strength to remain calm a while longer.

When she speaks, the animosity in her tone has gone. “I understand that giving a part of your heart is a frightening concept, and I apologize that I can’t explain it better. The need was dire, the moment desperate and I looked at both Snow and David, lying lifeless on the floor. They needed a heart to stay alive. I focused all that I have ever felt for the idiots and everything inside of me that is good and real and, so, I made them a heart.”

“I trust you, Sis,” Zee says.

“Thank you.” Regina looks at her sister, then Red and Maleficent. “I won’t lie, it will hurt. When I take a piece of your hearts, it will hurt.”

“Aye,” Maleficent says. “And when we destroy that heart with the Darkness trapped in it, we will feel it too.”

“I believe so,” Regina says.

Their endeavour is a risky one, but Lily is right. This is the only plan that will work.

They need a heart they can destroy so that the Darkness passes from this world without a host and disappears forever.

“That’s the part I’m not clear on,” Red says. “How come if we stab the heart with the dagger, then it gets destroyed and no one else becomes the Dark One?”

“After Regina summons the Dark One,” Mal says, “we will use the incantation that Zee has found to coax the Darkness out of Emma.”

“Okay,” Red says while she tugs on Regina’s hand to sit beside her on the sofa. “Keep talking,” she tells Maleficent and then whispers to Regina. “I’m ready, Regina. Do your thing with my heart.”

Regina stares at Red. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” Red smiles. That crooked little smirk of hers which is all bluff and no cocky.

“Focus on Maleficent and don’t look.” Regina pushes a strand of never-tamed hair behind the girl’s ear.

Red tucks one of her legs under her and puts a hand in Regina’s lap. Then she looks at Maleficent, who resumes reciting their plan to save Emma.

“Once the Darkness is out of Emma, I will show it the heart that we will have built.”

Regina leans in closer to Red and wraps an arm around her back, placing her hand flat between Red’s shoulder blades. She cups Red’s left breast in her other hand and closes her eyes. Red gulps and tenses. Regina waits. She listens, not to Maleficent, but to Red’s heartbeat. She listens for Red’s breathing to calm down. She waits for Red’s breast to feel warm in her hand. She can smell the forest in Red’s hair and the wilderness of her magic on her skin. Through her fingertips on Red’s back she knows their brands of magic are in sync.

When all is silent but for Red’s heart, Regina realizes something she has not noticed before. Red’s heartbeat is twofold. Girl and wolf.

Plunging her hand into Red’s chest is easy. Red only lets out a gasp but Regina can taste her fear. She can taste her wolf too. The instinct to repel.

She waits. She thinks about Red, about their friendship, about the meaning of the girl in her life.

Regina takes Red’s heart in her hand.

“Regina?” Red grasps Regina’s forearm.

In Red’s ear, Regina barely whispers, “I know you trust me.”

Red releases Regina’s forearm and puts both her hands in Regina’s lap. As she does, Regina pulls Red’s heart out of her chest.

“Oh,” Red lets out in surprise.

Shining in her hand, Red’s heart is of a shape and a color Regina has never seen before. Just like her heartbeat, it is unique. Its red is ruby but in its center is a pulsing white ball of light. The heart is swollen on each side and marbled with black veins. Red’s darkness is thin and sinuous.

“Once the Darkness possesses the heart, Emma’s name will disappear from the dagger and then we will be able to destroy the Dark One’s curse forever.”

From the corner of her eye Regina can see Red doing her best to look at Maleficent behind her. She focuses all her magic in her hands. She lets go of Red’s back. Without pause, Regina severs a piece of Red’s heart like she would pull a Band-Aid.

Red yelps with pain and falls into Regina’s chest.

“There, it’s over.” As easily as she took it out, Regina replaces Red’s heart in her chest and wraps the girl in her arms. She rests her cheek atop Red’s head and rocks them both.

“How?” Red’s voice comes out muffled from Regina’s chest.

“How what, darling?” Regina leans back to look at Red, whose eyes are full of tears.

“How do we know the Darkness will be destroyed?” Red looks at Regina, sniffles, then looks up to Maleficent.

It’s Zelena who answers. “Well, we know from Cora’s journal—and, trust me, Belle and I double checked—that if the Dark One’s heart dies without another to claim the Darkness, it will pass from that world.” Zee gets up from the armchair by the fireplace and walks over to sit next to Red. She takes Red’s hand in hers and looks at Regina. “Do me next, Sis.”

Regina nods and stands up to put away the piece of Red’s heart. She deposits it oh-so-carefully in an open box lined with felt.

“So, if we stab and kill the heart that belongs to no one with a dagger that has no name on it, we zero out the Dark One’s Curse and the Darkness will pass from this world.”

Regina sits back on the other side of the couch next to her sister who is still solely focused on Red. _‘Do your thing.’_ Zee says only for her.

Zee’s back is turned to Regina. It doesn’t matter which side Regina pulls her sister’s heart from. Zelena doesn’t even flinch.

“The real question—” Zee winces when Regina takes a piece from the mostly red but still emerald-green-laced heart “—is whether the Darkness passing from this world will actually kill it or are we just sending it away to be another world’s problem.”

Regina squeezes her sister’s free hand as she stands to put away Zee’s heart piece safely next to Red’s.

“Maybe we should all focus really hard on sending the Darkness to Mars or somewhere like that. You know, where there isn’t anyone else to leech on,” Red says, holding onto Zee’s hand.

“I like that.” Zelena smiles that eerie smile of hers.

Regina rests her forehead against the wood of her bookshelves. She takes a moment to swallow the bile which has risen to the knot in her throat. A moment to contemplate how she used to pull hearts from her victims’ chests to control them with her fear and her rage like her mother before her. How precious hearts are. How she killed her father for one. Disgust.

Breaking hearts is a vile thing to do. Even in love.

She doesn’t realize the time that passes or the silence in the room until Maleficent breaks it.

“You two should go find Henry and Lily. Maybe eat some chocolate.”

Regina knows the dryness of Maleficent’s humor is for her. It doesn’t alleviate her self-loathing—as she’s already told Maleficent, there is no reprieve—but it does distract her.

She feels a hand on her back. She hears the soft steps of Red’s bare feet on the floor. She accepts the _‘I love you’_ as the green of Zee’s disappearing smokes colors her closed eyelids.

“You need to let me do yours,” Maleficent says.

“No.” Regina shakes herself from her weakness and faces Maleficent. “I’ll do it myself.”

“Won’t you let me help you?” Maleficent stands from the ledge of Regina’s desk. “And don’t tell me you deserve that pain, too.”

Regina lets Maleficent walk over to her while she leans back against the seam of the shelves.

Regina sighs. “It’s not that. I just don’t want you to have to feel this—”

She waves her hand to the side. Maleficent catches it.

“You’re exhausted.”

“I need to show Lily what I must do to her heart.”

Maleficent pulls Regina to her. Powerful. Hot. Like the burning heart in Regina’s hand that Maleficent has fluidly pushed in her own chest.

“Did you really think I didn’t know how?”

Dragon.

Regina smiles despite herself.

Maleficent pulls Regina’s hand out of her chest. Maleficent takes a hold of her large, deep, molten red heart and gives a hard tug. In Regina’s hand a piece is left, no less hot than the rest of her heart that Maleficent puts back in her chest before she takes her sliver from Regina and reserves it in the box with the others.

“Our daughter will forgive you and we will save your Emma.”

They must. Regina can’t lose any more.

Maleficent’s hold doesn’t waver.

Lily clears her throat.

Dragons.

“Red said it was my turn.”

Maleficent smiles to Regina and to Lily. “Yes, I’ll leave you to it.”

Regina misses the warmth and the strength.

“Where do you want me?”

“Please, sit.”

Regina walks with Lily to her desk chair. She could sit on the windowsill or on the edge of the desk, but she chooses to kneel in front of Lily.

Lily looks around. She picks up a framed picture of Henry, with Regina and Emma each holding him by the shoulder. Henry is smiling. He looks awkward in his skin because he’s growing and he doesn’t quite know how to hold himself. Emma and Regina are blushing, awkward in their own way. Yet Regina keeps the photo close. There aren’t many photos of her family together, especially when they didn’t know that they were one.

“He’s going to be angry at you for a while,” Lily says.

“He’s not the only one.”

“No.” Lily puts the frame back. “But he’ll forgive you as soon as you bring Emma home.”

Lily won’t forgive Regina. Loud and clear.

She wants to ask if there’s something she can do. Anything. Regina will do anything.

Lily’s look is anger and fire, but not indifference. Lily is tormented. Conflicted.

Regina refuses to give up.

“I’ll show you what I’m about to do to your heart.”

Lily keeps staring.

Regina breathes in deeply and plunges her hand into her own chest.

Lily’s eyes widen.

Regina pulls out her heart. She takes Lily’s hand in hers and places her heart in Lily’s palm.

“Oh,” Lily says. “It’s so light and warm.”

“It’s the magical essence of my heart, not the actual organ, that’s why it’s lighter.”

Regina leans in and presses the palm of her hand to Lily’s chest.

“Hmm.” Lily nods her consent. “What’s the black pool in the middle?”

“The darkness inside of me.” Regina grasps at Lily’s knee as she presses her hand inside Lily’s chest as gently as she can.

Lily looks up from Regina’s heart to her eyes. “Can you feel it if I squeeze it?”

Regina doesn’t hesitate. “If you focus your power around my heart, I will obey your command. If you squeeze it, I will suffer.”

Lily squeezes.

It’s not that Regina didn’t expect her to. She clenches her jaw and shuts her eyes in pain. She tries not to yelp. She pulls Lily’s heart out of her chest and deposits it in Lily’s other hand.

Lily releases the pressure.

Regina grunts and bends forward. She closes her eyes and presses her forehead on her hand, which is still grasping Lily’s knee.

“If—” Regina pants with her other hand to her chest. “If you squeeze hard enough, you will kill me.”

Regina waits.

“Look at me,” Lily orders her.

Regina feels the command through her heart in Lily’s hand. Lily is trying herself at putting magic where her anger is.

Regina looks up. She would have looked anyway.

“Why is my heart different than yours?”

Lily’s heart is bigger and of the same molten lava as Maleficent. It’s not black. Not a single speck.

“Your heart is like your mother’s. A Dragon’s heart.”

“Why is there no black in mine?”

“Because you haven’t darkened it by your actions. You haven’t corrupted your heart.”

“You don’t know shit about me.”

“No,” Regina says. “I would like to, though.”

Regina takes her own heart in her hands and breaks a piece from it. It hurts, but not as much as absorbing a whole curse to save Emma, or containing the power of the failsafe in the mines. Or being tortured by Hook.

Not as much as losing Emma to the Darkness, or having a daughter who hates her.

Regina gives her heart back to Lily.

“My heart used to be darker than this.”

“Because you cursed everybody here?”

“No, because I killed my father to curse everybody here. And because I trampled and killed innocent people trying to destroy Snow White and everything she represents.” Regina doesn’t know why she just said that, other than she doesn’t want to lie to Lily and the only way she can earn her forgiveness is by taking responsibility.

It’s always been about responsibility and integrity. It’s how she connected with Emma. It’s how Henry forgave her and came home. It’s how she can live with herself.

Because she chooses to be better, every day, every question, every challenge.

Honor.

“You killed your own father?” Lily’s shock is mixed with disgust.

“You don’t know shit about me,” Regina says.

She puts the piece of her heart on her desk and takes Lily’s heart in her hands. She could warn her, but Regina decides against it and breaks apart Lily’s piece.

Lily groans and squeezes Regina’s heart hard enough to make Regina yelp in pain. She falters and her head falls into Lily’s lap. Lily grasps her shoulder hard and digs her nails into Regina’s skin through her shirt.

“You were right,” Lily says. “It fucking hurts.”

Regina takes a deep breath despite the fact that Lily hasn’t let up. She enjoys her proximity to Lily as much as she can, but she doesn’t want to risk Lily pushing her away.

Regina straightens up. She puts Lily’s heart back in her chest and then she waits. Lily’s hand is still tight around Regina’s heart. She can feel the tension. The hesitation.

“I need my heart to make the one we want to use.” Regina catches Lily’s gaze as she looks up from her hands. “If you want it back when I’m done, I will show you how to use your powers.”

“Why would I want it back?” Lily says. “I don’t care about your heart.”

Regina knows why Lily would want her heart back. She also knows that Lily is lying. She cares. Regina can feel it.

She takes Lily’s hand and pulls it to her chest, drawing Lily close to her.

“Focus on your magic and listen for mine.”

“What am I supposed to hear?”

Regina holds Lily’s wrist and presses Lily’s hand against her chest. “When you find the brand of my magic, the taste, the sound, the tension, any of these things or all of them, you’ll unlock the magical plane of my body and you will be able to reach into my chest.”

“It’s like phasing in Star Trek.” Lily looks up from her hand to Regina.

Regina smiles. She is surrounded by dorks. “Yes, it’s exactly like phasing in Star Trek.”

Lily seems stuck, looking at Regina but also through her. Regina can feel the probing of Lily’s mind and her magic. Regina focuses on her emotions. Her remorse, her desire to be better. Her love.

She lets images flow from her consciousness. Her time with Maleficent, riding her horse hard in the night to find her way back to their safe haven, Maleficent soaring in the morning sky as the sun rose. How she learned magic, how she darkened her heart for freedom, how she lost herself in vengeance. How she started to change when she found Henry, how she fought her way back to herself. How Emma terrified her, how Emma challenged her, how Emma became her friend.

How she fell in love.

“Stop.” Lily’s voice is hoarse. “It’s too much.”

Lily is still holding Regina’s heart. She’s squeezing it inside Regina’s chest.

Regina lets go of Lily’s wrist and grasps the side of her desk to keep herself from crumbling to the floor under the strain of Lily’s hold. She can’t help her sob. She covers her mouth with a hand.

“You left me.” Lily is crying. “I know you regret it, but you left me.”

Regina cups Lily’s cheek and rests her forehead against hers.

“I don’t know if I can forgive you.”

Lily lets go of Regina’s heart but doesn’t move away from her. She leans into Regina’s hand on her cheek.

“Just don’t stop trying, okay?”

“Querida mia,” Regina says as she wraps Lily in her arms. “I promise you I will never leave you ever again.”

Regina breathes her daughter in before they disentangle from each other.

Lily clears her throat and dries her tears on the back of her hand.

“Would you like to stay?” Regina stands and grabs a tissue to dab at her face.

Lily nods.

“I’ll get the other pieces.” She retrieves the box of heart pieces. Each different from the other. Each precious. Each irreplaceable.

She arranges the slices on her desk and puts the box aside.

“I didn’t expect them to be so different,” Lily says.

“Every heart is unique, at least in essence, but we are…more.” Regina says. “You and your mother are dragons, incredibly powerful and immortal. Red is—well, Red is not easy to describe, or less powerful than you or me, she’s just wild. Zelena is like rapids, magic flows through her with a brutal hunger that is in a perpetual combat with her darkness, her greed. As for my heart, it’s better than it was.”

Lily looks at Regina then at her shard.

“The way you talk about magic, it’s beautiful.”

Regina smiles at Lily. She might not know how to earn her daughter’s forgiveness, but curiosity? That, she knows how to answer.

“Magic is beautiful. It’s how we choose to use it that corrupts it. There is no dark magic, only the darkness within us.”

“Is that why my heart isn’t so dark? Because I never used my magic before?”

“Magical people have different views on magic and how it behaves. The Apprentice, the man who put Emma’s potential for darkness in you? He obviously got his comprehension of magic completely wrong. His teacher was Merlin, and Merlin was mistaken, as light wizards often are.

“Your heart isn’t darkened because you haven’t given yourself up to the dark side. I feel that magic is strong within you, and that the darkness you have in you now is born from anger and frustration, but you can see it for yourself, your heart isn’t corrupted.”

“So the force is strong with me?” Lily chuckles.

Regina smiles and nods. “Very.”

“I turned into a dragon the other day. After I left.” Lily looks down at her hands and rubs them together. “Maleficent had to come wrestle me so I wouldn’t get loose into town.”

“I’m sorry for upsetting you, Lily.”

“I was freaking out. The first time, I didn’t fly or anything. I just uprooted a few trees in the forest. But this time was different.”

Lily pauses and touches the shard of her heart on the desk. Regina remains silent, for she knows what comes next.

“I wanted to kill.”

“Me,” Regina says.

“Yes.” Lily breathes in deep. She gets lost in the fire of the hearth. “I breathed fire and attacked Maleficent.”

“She didn’t tell me.”

“When I calmed down, we were both messed up,” Lily says. “She’s much bigger than me.”

“She’s older,” Regina says. She decides to tell Lily something that suddenly matters very much. “She was the last of her kind. The last dragon. When I found her, she was so incredibly sad and lonely. She was withering away, alone in her melancholy.”

Lily finally looks at her. “Do you still love her? Maleficent? My mom?”

Regina doesn’t need to ponder her answer. “I never stopped loving her. I can’t, and I don’t want to. She has always been the one light in my darkest hour. She’s incredible.”

“But you’re not in love with her anymore. You’re in love with Emma.”

“I am in love with Emma,” Regina says. She gathers the shards in her hands. “And I will forever love your mother. She is Maleficent.”

Lily smiles.

Regina stands and smiles back. “She gave me you.”

She closes her eyes.

She brings all the pieces of hearts against her chest. She focuses as steadily as she can on the love inside her. Henry. Zee and baby Zora. Red. Maleficent. Lily.

Her Emma

Her Emma, who is broken and lost to the Dark One’s curse.

Her Emma, whom she’s hated to love from the moment she set foot in her life.

Regina breathes. With all the might of her love that she pushes and binds to the pieces in her hands, she makes a heart.

The room around her is purple. The house is shaking. The heart she’s created is hovering above her open hand.

Her magic is bursting. Pouncing. Roaring.

Fierce.

Her love. Her heart. Her will.

It beats.

Her Emma.


End file.
